
HK Works on Image Overhaul to Attract Overseas Visitors
Hong Kong's tourism chief says the city's efforts to overhaul an image dented by years of turbulence and reestablish itself as an Asian events hub is luring international visitors beyond mainland China. Bloomberg's Stephen Engle speaks with Hong Kong's Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law on the challenges ahead amid global economic uncertainty, and the intense tourism competition from its neighbors. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Forbes
19 minutes ago
- Forbes
India's Largest Companies 2025: Big Banks Highlight India's Presence On The Global 2000
India's most profitable private sector bank, HDFC Bank, moved up to No. 53 on this year's Global 2000. India is among the top five countries to be represented on the 2025 Forbes Global 2000 list, ranking the world's largest publicly traded companies. With 70 companies this year it is No. 4 behind the U.S. (612), China/Hong Kong (317) and Japan (180). Indian companies span a range of sectors from banking to telecom to consumer goods and this year their combined profit rose to $126 billion from $120 billion last year. Combined assets grew to $5.5 trillion from $5.08 trillion the previous year and the aggregate market value rose marginally to $2.3 trillion from $2.15 trillion last year. Mumbai-based conglomerate, Reliance Industries, with interests in everything from petrochemicals, oil and gas to retail and telecom, retained the top spot in the country, and moved up four ranks from No.49 to No.45 on the global list. Reliance reported sales of $114 billion, up from $109 billion last year, and was largely insulated from global headwinds with its revenue driven mostly by domestic demand. More than a third of the companies are drawn from the financial services sector spanning banks, insurance companies and consumer lenders. India's most profitable private sector bank, HDFC Bank, moved up 12 spots to No. 53 on the global list. It took over the No. 2 position in India from state-run behemoth State Bank of India which stayed put at No. 55 globally but slipped to the third position in the country. Private lenders ICICI Bank and Axis Bank also feature among the top ten in the country, buoyed by a robust banking sector, which was bolstered by the Reserve Bank of India's interest rate cuts, high net interest margins and robust asset quality. (The NIFTY Bank index grew 14% over the past year.) Seven Indian companies debuted on the Global 2000 this year. Notable among them is Gurgaon-based Eternal, parent of food delivery service Zomato and 10-minute grocery delivery service Blinkit. Among the large Indian conglomerates, the most entries were from the $164 billion (revenue) Tata group conglomerate. Half a dozen Tata companies made the cut, including regulars such as auto behemoth Tata Motors and IT giant Tata Consultancy Services as well as one new entrant to the list, Mumbai-based retailer Trent. Selling everything from apparel to footwear to grocery, the company saw sales jump to $2 billion from $1.5 billion in the past year as profits rose to $231 million from $181 million. The company that climbed up the most in the ranks was Cholamandalam, the financial services arm of the Chennai-based conglomerate the Murugappa Group. Cholamandalam, which has revenues of $3.1 billion, rose 410 ranks to No. 1539, up from No. 1949 last year. Eight companies fell off the list including Varun Beverages, which is one of PepsiCo's biggest bottlers outside the U.S. The Gurgaon-based company is fending off rising competition in the domestic market, specifically from the revival of homegrown beverage brand Campa Cola now owned by Reliance Industries. Steel makers Steel Authority of India and Jindal Steel and Power, part of the O.P Jindal group chaired by India's richest woman, Savitri Jindal, also dropped out, hammered by cheap Chinese imports and lower capacity utilization. But JSW Steel, run by Jindal's son Sajjan Jindal, managed to retain its place in the ranks but fell by 254 places to No. 899–down from No. 645 last year. Forbes
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Xi Plays Long Game on US-China Trade as Trump Seeks Quick Wins
(Bloomberg) — While Donald Trump hailed the outcome of trade talks in London, Xi Jinping walked away with an understated strategic gain: a negotiating process that buys China time and helps defuse the threat of more harmful tariffs and technology curbs. Shuttered NY College Has Alumni Fighting Over Its Future Trump's Military Parade Has Washington Bracing for Tanks and Weaponry NYC Renters Brace for Price Hikes After Broker-Fee Ban NY Long Island Rail Service Resumes After Grand Central Fire Do World's Fairs Still Matter? Shortly after two days of negotiations wrapped, Trump declared Wednesday on social media that a deal had been 'DONE' to restore the flow of critical magnets from China, and pledged to lift curbs on student visas. Hours earlier, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick revealed Washington would unwind its recent tech curbs, if niche metals essential to US auto and defense firms now flowed fast enough. China's focus was very different. A People's Daily commentary on Thursday — Beijing's most substantial comments so far on the talks — made no mention of export controls. Instead, the Communist Party mouthpiece touted an 'institutional guarantee' established in Geneva for the two sides to bridge differences via a 'consultation mechanism.' In a long-awaited leaders' call before the London negotiations, Xi told Trump the importance of using this channel, it added. The contrast illustrates a disconnect in how the world's biggest economies want to manage their trade dispute, and broader rollercoaster relationship. While Trump seeks quick deals done directly with top leaders, Xi favors a framework led by his lieutenants that wards against being blindsided. Such haggling could drag on for years, with the 'Phase One' deal from the first trade war taking most of Trump's first term. 'Xi is playing a longer game on US-China trade. His time in office is simply much longer than Trump's,' said Christopher Beddor, deputy China research director at Gavekal Research. 'That's not to say there's never any short-term thinking, but the lack of term limits presents very different incentives than for Trump.' While slow-walking negotiations allows China the chance to assess how hard a bargain Trump drives with other nations, the lingering uncertainty is bad for business, he added. Xi showed last week he can be flexible, getting on the phone with Trump as ties spiraled, breaking from the protocol to set up such an interaction. In the Biden era, then National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Foreign Minister Wang Yi would huddle in foreign locations for days before their leaders spoke directly, managing outcomes and expectations. While the Geneva talks last month wrapped with an identical US-China statement, suggesting a degree of alignment, that accord quickly fell apart over US claims China reneged on a promise to release shipments of rare earths. Beijing says it always intended to keep in place a permit process, which American companies complained moved so slowly some factories were forced to pause production. The lack of a detailed read out from either side this time around has left much in doubt, including on what Beijing committed to on the export of niche metals used in everything from fighter jets to electric vehicles. Lutnick told CNBC on Wednesday that China was going to approve 'all applications for magnets from the United States companies right away' — a sweeping claim that appeared to leave plenty of room for disappointment. Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman He Yadong pledged his country would 'fully consider the reasonable needs and concerns of all countries in the civilian sector,' at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday, adding that approval work was being strengthened. 'The Chinese incentive is also to keep cards close to their chest, and not make a lot of proclamations about what they have or have not committed to,' said Arthur Kroeber, founding partner and head of research at Gavekal. 'There is a lot of leeway for them within the whole export licensing regime.' One approach could be to restart enough export licenses so commercial buyers aren't stymied, but not so much that firms can stockpile, thus blunting Beijing's future leverage, he added. Adding to the fuzziness, Trump declared on social media that China now faces a 55% charge, a number that appears to include levies introduced during his first presidency. It also combines a 10% baseline duty imposed by Trump and a 20% tax tied to fentanyl trafficking — an area where Beijing was seen as having room to negotiate if it stepped up scrutiny of its companies. Lutnick cast doubt on that, and raised questions about the nature of future negotiations, saying that tariffs on China would 'definitely' stick at their current level. That suggests a 90-day pause set to expire in August on Trump's blanket 145% rate was now irrelevant. Such a position also dilutes the incentive for Beijing to offer concessions in future trade talks, if tariffs can't budge. While China has felt the pain from US levies, with exports to the world's largest economy plunging 34% in May, Trump appears to be in the bigger hurry to get a deal. His administration is facing a self-imposed July 9 deadline to either strike pacts with dozens of global trading partners or reimpose sweeping tariffs. In a sign of the Republican leader's growing impatience, he warned Wednesday that he will soon send letters to countries saying, 'this is the deal, you can take it or leave it.' Exemplifying that willingness to keep things moving, Trump's team in a rare move this week put export controls on the negotiating table — previously, such tools have been justified with national security concerns, and were largely off limits. Watering down that rationale could open the door to more cooperation, and advance Trump's stated goal to 'open up China to American trade.' Still, China is unlikely to agree to large purchases of goods that compete in areas where Beijing is looking to build self sufficiency and nurture its own national champions. Rebalancing their economies, a concept touted by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, could involve attracting more Chinese investment into the US. Policy whiplash by the Trump administration might deter many Chinese companies from pouring money into the US economy, even if Xi were to encourage them to do so. Addressing these issues will take time, presumably requiring long discussions using the mechanism that China and US included in what Beijing called their 'hard won' agreement. 'Some people say that the result of the London talks was just a framework,' said Zhu Junwei, a former researcher in the People's Liberation Army who is now director of American research at Grandview Institution in Beijing. 'It's better to have a framework than have nothing.' —With assistance from Jing Li and Lucille Liu. American Mid: Hampton Inn's Good-Enough Formula for World Domination New Grads Join Worst Entry-Level Job Market in Years The Spying Scandal Rocking the World of HR Software US Tariffs Threaten to Derail Vietnam's Historic Industrial Boom The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Netflix co-CEO sees Warner split as part of broader ‘shakeout'
(Bloomberg) — Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.'s (WBD) decision to split into two independent companies is a sign of a broader 'shakeout' across a media industry that has become increasingly dominated by streaming and on-demand services, Netflix Inc. (NFLX) co-Chief Executive Officer Greg Peters said. Shuttered NY College Has Alumni Fighting Over Its Future Trump's Military Parade Has Washington Bracing for Tanks and Weaponry NYC Renters Brace for Price Hikes After Broker-Fee Ban NY Long Island Rail Service Resumes After Grand Central Fire Do World's Fairs Still Matter? 'Everything is moving to streaming — everything is moving to on demand,' Peters said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Founders Forum Global conference. 'There's going to be a period of shakeout and transition associated with that.' US media groups have struggled to improve profitability in the face of expensive streaming wars against the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime (AMZN). Warner Bros. Discovery announced this week that it will split into two to unshackle the company's fast-growing streaming business from its struggling legacy media channels. Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) has taken a similar path, dividing NBCUniversal into Versant — which will own cable networks like MSNBC — and the rest, including streaming service Peacock and the NBC broadcast network. 'They have to rationalize their business for that reality' of streaming demand, Peters said. 'We're definitely seeing the results of that.' When asked whether legacy players in the market will merge, he said: 'There's an inevitable logic to that.' That said, Peters said at the event in Oxford that Netflix hasn't generally been acquisitive. 'Our track record is we're builders,' he said. 'We're not buyers.' He did note that Netflix is seeking to increase the value of its intellectual property. Netflix's subscriber base is meanwhile growing in all the markets, according to Peters. 'We've got a lot more room to grow in Asia,' he said, adding that South Korea and India are strong growth markets. American Mid: Hampton Inn's Good-Enough Formula for World Domination New Grads Join Worst Entry-Level Job Market in Years The Spying Scandal Rocking the World of HR Software US Tariffs Threaten to Derail Vietnam's Historic Industrial Boom The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's CGU and Politique de confidentialité Erreur lors de la récupération des données Connectez-vous pour accéder à votre portefeuille Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données