Toyota is short of energy for wide release of battery cars September 24, 2012 TOYOTA has scrapped plans for widespread sales of a new all-electric minicar, saying it had misread the market and the ability of still-emerging battery technology to meet consumer demands. Toyota, which had already taken a more conservative view of the market for battery-powered cars than rivals General Motors and Nissan, said it would only sell [...]
Cairn to sell stake in its joint venture in India September 24, 2012 CAIRN Energy is selling an eight per cent stake in Cairn India for up to $940m (£579m), a source with direct knowledge of the matter said, in a second such deal in three months to pare holding in its former Indian unit. Cairn Energy last year sold a controlling stake in Cairn India to London-listed [...]
Petra moves into the red September 24, 2012 SOUTH Africa-focused Petra Diamonds yesterday reported a loss after tax of $2.1m (£1.3m) down from $59.2m profit last year, hurt by $38.6m foreign exchange losses due to swings in the value of the South African rand. The FTSE 250-listed diamond miner, which has seven operating mines in South Africa and one in Tanzania, reported a [...]
Prime London property prices still soaring up September 24, 2012 PRIME London property registered another quarter of booming growth in the three months to September, estate agent data revealed yesterday. Prime property prices grew 0.5 per cent between the second and third quarters, capping off growth totalling five per cent over the year, the research from Savills showed. Contrasting with the picture in much of [...]
Hillary Clinton calls on rich to pay more tax September 24, 2012 US SECRETARY of state Hillary Clinton has called on the world’s wealthiest to pay their fair share of taxes. As the Democrats ramp up their fight against the Republicans ahead of November’s presidential election, Clinton told a conference in New York that she is keen for countries around the world to “collect taxes in an [...]
Bank of Japan ready for more bold action September 24, 2012 JAPAN could be set for even more monetary stimulus, its central bank’s deputy governor revealed yesterday, less than a week after it announced the latest tranche of quantitative easing (QE). The country’s asset buying and loan programme will be boosted to 80 trillion yen (£632bn), the Bank of Japan (BoJ) said last Wednesday. And yesterday [...]
Poll shows workers unaware of pension auto-enrolment plans September 24, 2012 MUCH OF the UK’s population is clueless about auto-enrolment, despite the fact workers and businesses will be impacted from next week, a survey from Friends Life revealed yesterday. A full 60 per cent of respondents to the poll said they didn’t know what auto-enrolment was, and a further 27 per cent said they didn’t know [...]
US recovery looks in doubt as Fed activity index collapses September 24, 2012 THE US recovery faltered in August, according to the Chicago Fed’s national activity index released yesterday. The headline indicator fell from minus 0.12 in July to minus 0.87 in August – below the minus 0.7 level that is consistent with weak recovery. Figures above zero indicate more robust growth. The three-month moving average also slipped, [...]
Car sales get on the road September 24, 2012 Consumers are piling into the car market, according to data released by Sainsbury’s Bank yesterday. Some 9.8m people intend to buy a car in the coming six months, the data shows, a three per cent jump on the previous six-months. But the report also warned that many car purchases would be on the more frugal [...]
Taiwan industrial output up September 24, 2012 Taiwan’s industrial production surprised analysts by growing in August, even as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) cut its forecast for the country’s growth. Industrial production grew 1.8 per cent during August, putting it 1.9 per cent up on a year previously – economists had been expecting the data to reveal a 0.4 per cent yearly [...]
