latest world business news

China's economic growth rose in the fourth quarter of 2012, helping the world's most populous nation end the year with a growth rate of 7.8%, according to figures released on January 18, 2013 from the National Bureau of Statistics. Last quarter, China's economy grew at a pace of 7.9%, slightly better than analyst expectations and breaking a pattern of seven straight quarters of decline.  China's growth rate had been steadily falling since the fourth quarter of 2010, when economic output grew 9.8%. The slowing growth rate bottomed out in the third quarter of 2012, when China's economy only grew at 7.4%.  Last March, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao lowered the country's 2012 growth target from 8% to 7.5%. While such growth would be the envy of most nations, China's economy has grown at an average rate of about 10% each year for the past 30 years. This has helped propel China to become the world's second largest economy, just behind that of t...

Canada will formally withdraw its stand from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the country's minister of the environment Peter Kent has said, making it the first nation to pull out of the global treaty.  The protocol "does not represent a way forward for Canada" and would have forced it to take "radical and irresponsible choices", Mr. Kent said in Toronto on Monday. He added that it was a mistake for Canada to have signed up for Kyoto: "As we have said, Kyoto for Canada is in the past ... We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto." "The Kyoto protocol does not cover the world's two largest emitters, China and the US, and therefore cannot work," he said. China, which argues that it should be exempt from emissions reduction targets because it is a developing nation, said Canada's decision was "regrettable" and went against international efforts to tackle climate change. "We...

Prices in China continued to rise at a steady pace in September, a sign that the world's largest nation still faces significant inflation pressures even amid signs of a slowing global economy.  Overall prices were up 6.1% from a year ago, little improved from the 6.2% rise in August. The reading matched the consensus forecast, according to Jay Bryson, international economist at Wells Fargo Securities. Food prices continued to lead the way, increasing 13.4%, the same as the previous month, and adding 4.1 percentage points to the overall increase. "Food price increases seems to be, at a minimum, stabilizing, maybe even beginning to recede for some products," Bryson said.  Food prices were increasing at a 14.8% annual rate as recently as July. The Chinese government has been taking steps to try to curb inflation. The People's Bank of China has raised it key interest rates five times since October. And it has also allowed the Chinese currency, the yuan, to ...

The Asian giants India and China have agreed a new $100 billion bilateral trade target by 2015, up from $60 billion in 2010. The two sides agreed to take measures to promote greater Indian exports to China, to reduce India's trade deficit between the two countries. Companies have already signed business deals worth $16 billion on the opening day of Chinese PM Wen Jiabao's three-day official visit to India. The latest of a number of world leaders to visit India, Mr Wen is accompanied by some 400 Chinese business leaders. China is India's largest trading partner.

WikiLeaks has published some crucial issues form secret US diplomatic cables. The latest internationally significant releases from the Wikileaks are categorized here: 1. About Chinese economic expansion in Africa: The United States thinks China is a " pernicious economic competitor with no morals " whose booming investments in Africa are propping up unsavoury regimes , according to a February 23 cable by the US consul-general in Lagos. The US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Johnnie Carson, was quoting as giving the frank assessment in a meeting with oil executives in Nigeria. "China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons," he said. " China is in Africa for China primarily. " 2. To free Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo: US officials pushed China to free dissident Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, in the weeks after he was first detained. In late 2008, only two weeks after Liu was first held, then ambassador to China Cl...

A Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 302 miles per hour (486 kilometers per hour) Friday during a test run of a yet-to-be opened link between Beijing and Shanghai, state media said. China Railway High-Speed (CRH) train enters Bengbu south railway station, a stop in Anhui province on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line, on Friday Dec. 3, 2010. The Xinhua News Agency said it was the fastest speed recorded by an unmodified conventional commercial train. Other types of trains in other countries have traveled faster. A specially modified French TGV train reached 357.2 mph (574.8 kph) during a 2007 test, while a Japanese magnetically levitated train sped to 361 mph (581 kph) in 2003. State television footage showed the sleek white train whipping past green farm fields in eastern China. It reached the top speed on a segment of the 824-mile (1,318-kilometer) -long line between Zaozhuang city in Shandong province and Bengbu city in Anhui province, Xinhua said. The line i...

A good number of countries is highly dependent on Electricity generated from Coal. South Africa is on the top of the countries which produces electricity from coal.  South Africa has been producing 93.00% of its total electricity demand from coal. Some other top countries those are using coal as source of electricity are: Poland    92%,     PR China    79%, Australia    77%, Kazakhstan    70%,    India    69%, Israel    63%, Morocco    55%,        Czech Rep    60%, Greece    52%,        USA    49%,        Germany    46%.

Leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Co-operation (APEC) forum have pledged to establish  a regional free-trade area. The agreement was announced on Sunday at the end of a two-day summit held in Yokohama of Japan. The initiative would link the world's three biggest economies - the United States, Japan and China. However, deep differences remain - chiefly between the US and China - over trade imbalances and currency distortions. The USA aims to increase their exports to the region and considers China's cheap currency is a barrier to that goal. Chinese President Hu Jintao has said any change will only be made at Beijing's own pace. In their final declaration, APEC leaders reaffirmed their "unwavering commitment to achieving free and open trade and investment in the region". They also pledged to take "concrete steps toward realising a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific", but gave no timetable. The declaration - entitled Yokohama Vision - also rej...

Seoul military officials say the North Korea has an army unit of elite hackers. The comments came  when the question arises from Seoul officials and diplomats that hackers in China have stolen secrets on South Korea’s defense and foreign affairs by using bogus emails, the intelligence agency said Friday. The National Intelligence Service uncovered the hacking early this year and warned government offices about the danger of such emails, a spokesman said. Hackers sent emails in the names of South Korean diplomats, presidential aides and other people familiar to Seoul officials. Attached files containing viruses were disguised as important documents, such as analyzes on North Korea’s economy. When a recipient clicked on the attachment, the virus started downloading documents in his or her computer, the spokesman said. Lawmaker Lee Jung-Hyun of the ruling Grand National Party told parliament Thursday that a ‘considerable volume of classified documents’ was feared to have been lea...

China's 11 years imprisoned and dissident Human Rights Worker Liu Xiaobo has won the Nobel Peace Prize 2010. The Norwegian Nobel Committee in their citation  declared that "It has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 to Liu Xiaobo for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China". The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace. Such rights are a prerequisite for the "fraternity between nations" of which Alfred Nobel wrote in his will. Over the past decades, China has achieved economic advances to which history can hardly show any equal. The country now has the world's second largest economy; hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Scope for political participation has also broadened. China's new status must entail increased responsibility. China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as...

"We demand Japan return the Chinese captain unconditionally and immediately. If Japan continues to take the wrong course, China will take strong counter-measures and Japan will have to take all the consequences", Chinese foreign ministry statement said. China had warned it would be taking "strong measures" against Japan after a court in Okinawa, southern Japan, said the sailor could be held for a further 10 days. China has closed top-level exchanges with Japan in a row over the detention of a Chinese ship captain following a collision near disputed islands. The disputed islands are known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Chinese state media said ministerial and provincial-level contacts had been suspended, including talks on aviation and coal. Earlier, a Japanese court extended the detention of the captain, held after the collision in the East China Sea. A foreign ministry statement read out on Chinese state television said the decision had "serious...

Washington criticizes  Chinese currency intervention on Wednesday  and  the US administration has filed two new cases against Beijing at the World Trade Organisation in this connection, sources said. The moves are aimed to crank up pressure on Beijing to change what the US says are distortionary and illicit measures to favour its own companies. Tim Murphy, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, appeared at a House of Representatives hearing on Wednesday to promote a bill that would allow the US to treat Chinese currency undervaluation as an illegal export subsidy when imposing emergency tariffs. "The American people are calling for Washington to create jobs. Since the administration won't hold China accountable, the Congress must." Separately, the US trade representative (USTR) filed two WTO cases against China, one concerning Chinese restrictions on foreign suppliers processing credit and debit card payments, and another challenging China's own use of emerge...