Markets

SINGAPORE: Companies that have traditionally relied on migrant workers from India and Bangladesh are now looking further afield for labour, several firms told CNA. However, they also said that they are just starting to explore the options, and to expect project delays and disruptions for the time ...

BMW reiterated its full-year profit margin outlook on Friday, but said that it expected the rest of the year to remain volatile and that rising raw material costs could hurt earnings moving forward.

Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp is assuming under its earnings forecast for the year to March 2022 that no profits will be made from its telecommunications business in Myanmar because of political instability, an executive said on Friday.

New bank loans in China are expected to have dropped in April after a rebound in March, a Reuters poll showed, as the central bank continues with policy normalisation as economy quickly recovers, while maintains support for smaller firms.

Mitsui & Co plans to accelerate its expansion into healthcare and nutrition using IHH Healthcare Bhd, the Japanese trading house's CEO said on Friday, without addressing a media report that it plans to take the Malayasian health group private.

China's exports grew 32.3per cent from a year earlier in April, official data showed on Friday, beating market expectations as the world's second-largest economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Japan's services sector activity contracted in April as coronavirus emergency measures hit businesses, though the pace of decline eased to its slowest since around the time the health crisis started in early 2020.

Chinese online insurance technology firm Waterdrop Inc has raised US$360 million by pricing its shares at US$12 a piece in its New York initial public offering (IPO), according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

China has approved domestic fund managers' first exchange-traded funds (ETFs) based on Hong Kong's Hang Seng TECH Index, state media said on Friday, giving Chinese investors increased access to such big-name stocks as Alibaba and Tencent.

Global stocks headed for their first weekly gain in three amid a surge in commodity prices, while traders braced for a key U.S. jobs report later on Friday that could provide clues on when the Federal Reserve will ease back on monetary stimulus.