2025-01-07 09:26
HANOI, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Vietnam will maintain a flexible monetary policy aimed at controlling inflation, while authorities will monitor the policies of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in order to adjust domestic policies accordingly, its central bank said on Tuesday. Bad debt was on a rising trend and Vietnam's bond and stock markets are facing difficulties, as is the property sector, despite signs of recovery, deputy central bank governor Dao Minh Tu told a regular press briefing. Vietnam's manufacturing-led economy expanded 7.09% last year to $476.3 billion, outpacing the 5.05% growth of 2023, official data showed on Monday. The growth was driven by strong exports and robust foreign investment inflows. But despite the momentum, economists say weaknesses remain in the banking and real estate sectors, with credit growth below target. Tu said non-performing loans were under control and commercial banks were operating stably. Bank lending had increased 15.08% as of Dec. 31 and the central bank was targeting credit growth of 16% this year, he added. The central bank is dealing with troubled lender Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), he said, adding the takeover of two weak banks by private lenders would be completed before the Lunar New Year. In October, the central bank said another two were to be absorbed by bigger banks. The State Bank of Vietnam last year mounted an unprecedented rescue of SCB after it became embroiled in the country's biggest financial fraud. Reuters reported in April the SBV had pumped in $24 billion in "special loans" to prevent its collapse. Pham Chi Quang, head of the central bank's monetary policy department, said policies of the Trump administration would be monitored closely. The United States is a top destination for Vietnam's exports and Trump has pledged to impose new tariffs on imports. Quang said foreign exchange policy "would remain flexible" in accordance with global factors. "We will continue to stabilise interest rates and the forex rate amid difficulties in 2025. It's a challenging task for the SBV in the coming time but we are confident to be able to control the market," Quang said. Vietnam's dong is currently trading close to its lowest levels against the dollar. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vietnam-cbank-keep-flexible-monetary-policy-monitor-trump-policies-2025-01-07/
2025-01-07 09:16
Jan 7 (Reuters) - The pound rose to a new one-week high versus the dollar on Tuesday after jumping the day before after a media report said U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's advisers were considering applying tariffs only to critical imports. Trump, who refuted the report on Monday, had vowed to impose tariffs of 10% on global imports into the United States along with a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, increasing expectations for higher inflation and supporting the dollar. Sterling rose 0.25% to $1.2548, after reaching$1.2562, its highest level since Dec. 31. It hit $1.2349 last week, its lowest level since April 2024, as the dollar rallied on expectations for strong U.S. growth and increased tariffs. Analysts also said the combination of the downward revision to British third-quarter gross domestic product data and the news that three members of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England had voted for an immediate rate cut in December had triggered a new debate at the end of 2024 about how growth and inflation risks would feed into the BoE's policy decisions. Traders on Tuesday were pricing in around 56 basis points (bps) of interest rate cuts from the Bank of England this year, down slightly from late last week IRPR. The BoE lowered rates by 50 bps to 4.75% in 2024. "At a time when inflation risks are moderating through most of Europe, UK services inflation has remained particularly sticky", said Jane Foley, senior forex strategist at Rabobank. "Layered on top of that are the inflation risks that could stem from the October 30 UK budget," she said, adding that she expects the euro/sterling to continue bouncing around the 0.83 area in the months ahead as the market looks for more clarity on Britain's growth and inflation predicament. Analysts expect higher inflation to delay BoE rate cuts, supporting the British currency. Sterling was roughly unchanged against the single currency , with one euro trading at 82.99 pence. Survey data on Monday showed growth in British business activity slowed to a crawl in December, and employers cut staffing at the fastest rate in almost four years. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/sterling-hits-new-one-week-high-versus-dollar-2025-01-07/
2025-01-07 08:01
Strong quake causes damage near one of Tibet's holiest cities At least 53 dead, 62 injured on Tibetan side, Xinhua reports Tremors also felt in Nepal, Bhutan and Northern India No reports of damage, lives lost around Everest, Nepal authorities say Earthquake locator map: BEIJING/KATHMANDU Jan 7 (Reuters) - A magnitude 6.8 earthquake , opens new tab rocked the northern foothills of the Himalayas near one of Tibet's holiest cities on Tuesday, Chinese authorities said, killing at least 53 people and shaking buildings in neighbouring Nepal, Bhutan and India. The quake hit at 9:05 a.m. (0105 GMT), with its epicentre located in Tingri, a rural Chinese county known as the northern gateway to the Everest region, at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), according to the China Earthquake Networks Centre. The U.S. Geological Service put the quake's magnitude at 7.1. At least 53 people had been killed and 62 injured on the Tibetan side, China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported. Southwestern parts of China, Nepal and northern India are frequently hit by earthquakes caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. Tuesday's epicentre was around 80 km (50 miles) north of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain and a popular destination for climbers and trekkers. Winter is not a popular season for climbers and hikers in Nepal, with a German climber the lone mountaineer with a permit to climb Mount Everest. He had already left the base camp after failing to reach the summit, Lilathar Awasthi, a Department of Tourism official, said. Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said the tremors were felt in seven hill districts bordering Tibet. "So far we have not received any information of any loss of life and property," NDRRMA spokesman Dizan Bhattarai told Reuters. "We have mobilised police, security forces and local authorities to collect information," he said. Many villages in the Nepalese border area, which are sparsely populated, are remote and can only be reached by foot. The impact of the quake was felt across the Shigatse region of Tibet, home to 800,000 people. The region is administered by Shigatse city, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism. Chinese President Xi Jinping said all-out search and rescue efforts should be carried out to minimise casualties, properly resettle the affected people, and ensure a safe and warm winter. More than 1,500 local firefighters and rescue workers have been dispatched to the affected areas, Xinhua reported. Some 22,000 items including cotton tents, cotton coats, quilts and folding beds have also been sent to the quake-hit region, it said. TREMORS, AFTERSHOCKS Villages in Tingri, where the average elevation is around 4,000-5,000 metres (13,000-16,000 feet), reported strong shaking during the quake, which was followed by dozens of aftershocks with magnitudes of up to 4.4. Crumbled shop fronts could be seen in a video on social media showing the aftermath in the town of Lhatse, with debris spilling out onto the road. Reuters was able to confirm the location based on nearby buildings, windows, road layout, and signage that match satellite and street view imagery. There are three townships and 27 villages within 20 km (12 miles) of the epicentre, with a total population of around 6,900, and more than 1,000 houses have been damaged, Xinhua reported. Local government officials were liaising with nearby towns to gauge the impact of the quake and check for casualties, and China closed the Everest region to tourists after the quake, it added. The Tingri tremor was caused by a rupture in what is known as the Lhasa block in an area under north-south compression and west-east stress, CCTV reported, citing Chinese experts. Since 1950, there have been 21 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or above in the Lhasa block, the largest of which was the 6.9-magnitude quake in Mainling in 2017, according to CCTV. Mainling is located in the lower reaches of Tibet's Yarlung Zangbo river where China is planning to build the world's largest hydropower dam. A magnitude 7.8 tremor , opens new tab struck near Nepal's capital Kathmandu in 2015, killing about 9,000 people and injuring thousands in the country's worst ever earthquake. Among the dead were at least 18 people killed at the Mount Everest base camp when it was hit by an avalanche. On Tuesday, tremors were felt in Kathmandu, some 400 km (250 miles) from the epicentre, and residents in the city ran out of their houses. "The bed was shaking and I thought my child was moving the bed ... I didn't pay that much attention but the shaking of (a) window made me understand that it's an earthquake," said Kathmandu resident Meera Adhikarii. "I'm still shaking out of fear and am in shock." One person was injured in Kathmandu when he jumped off the top of a house after feeling the strong tremors, Nepal Police spokesman Bishwa Adhikari said. The man was being treated in hospital. The quake also jolted Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, and the northern Indian state of Bihar which borders Nepal. So far, no reports of any damage or loss to property have been received, officials in India and Bhutan said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/china-reports-69-magnitude-earthquake-tibets-shigatse-city-2025-01-07/
2025-01-07 07:51
Jan 7 (Reuters) - UK's Serica Energy (SQZ.L) , opens new tab said on Tuesday that its Triton floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel in the North Sea resumed production on Dec. 27, with a phased restart of the producing and new wells ongoing. It said its 2024 annual production averaged 34,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), slightly below its previous forecast of 35,000 to 36,000 boepd. "Production in the second half of 2024 was clearly disappointing and well below the potential of our asset base," Chris Cox, Serica's CEO, said in a statement. Serica had reported a problem with a single gas compressor in the FPSO vessel in late October. At the time, it said the company's total output would be slightly below 41,000-46,000 boepd in 2024. "At Triton the key issue has been operating vulnerabilities associated with reliance on a single gas export compressor, and we have stayed in touch closely with the FPSO operator as they worked through root cause analysis in relation to the repeated issues seen in H2 2024," Cox said. The company said that the process of restarting Triton took longer than expected, with Serica also seeing a short period of unscheduled downtime at the Bruce oil and gas platform in the North Sea. The resumption of operations with two compressors at Triton, which the company has not seen since the first quarter of 2024, remains on schedule to be achieved in the first quarter of 2025, Serica said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/uks-serica-energy-restarts-production-triton-vessel-2025-01-07/
2025-01-07 06:49
GUWAHATI, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Three miners were feared dead inside a flooded coal mine in a remote district of India's north-eastern Assam state, authorities said on Tuesday, as rescue teams worked through the night to try to reach a total of nine men trapped inside. Three bodies have been spotted by rescue teams but have not yet been recovered, the local government said in a statement. Army teams deployed divers, helicopters and engineers to help rescue the nine men, who have been trapped since Monday in the mine in Assam's hilly Dima Hasao district, the army said in a statement. "The mine got flooded yesterday — the source was internal. They (the miners) probably hit some water channel and water came out and flooded it," Mayank Kumar, district police chief in Dima Hasao told Reuters. Kumar said rescue teams from the army, national and state disaster relief forces were working to reach the trapped miners. Photographs shared by the army on social media showed rescue workers with ropes, cranes and other equipment standing at the edge of a large, vertical mine. Coal mine-related disasters in the remote northeastern part of India are not uncommon. In one of the biggest disasters, in 2019, at least 15 miners were buried while working in an illegal mine in the neighbouring state of Meghalaya after it was flooded by water from a nearby river. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/india/three-feared-dead-india-deploys-divers-helicopters-rescue-trapped-miners-2025-01-07/
2025-01-07 06:41
Wall Street stocks finish lower European stocks rise for second-straight session Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields hit eight-month high US dollar index rises Oil prices settle higher NEW YORK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Global stocks lost ground while U.S. Treasury yields edged higher on Tuesday after data showed the American economy remained resilient, indicating the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates fewer times this year than the market had been expecting. On Wall Street, all three main indexes finished lower, with technology, consumer discretionary, and communication services stocks among the biggest losers. Energy and healthcare stocks advanced. U.S. services sector activity accelerated in December, beating expectations, while a measure of prices paid for inputs rose to a nearly two-year high, according to data from the Institute for Supply Management. Labor Department data also showed U.S. job openings unexpectedly increased in November, although a softening in hiring pointed to a slowing labor market. Markets are currently pricing in the probability of just one Fed cut in 2025, down from two rate cuts in December, according to the CME FedWatch tool. "The Trump trade has taken a bit of a breather right now because bond yields have been rising," said Wasif Latif, chief investment officer at Sarmaya Partners in New York. "I think the market is beginning to take note that between tariffs and the deficit that there's question marks about how we're going to be able to lower the deficit with all this promised spending coming in terms of tax cuts and other things the new administration wants to implement." The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) , opens new tab fell 0.42% to 42,528.36, the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab fell 1.11% to 5,909.03 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab fell 1.89% to 19,489.68. European stocks held their gains after rallying on Monday following a report saying President-elect Donald Trump's aides are considering narrower tariffs than previously thought. The European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) , opens new tab rose 0.32% for its second consecutive gain. It rose 1.75% on Monday following the report on tariffs, which caused shares of automakers to rally. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) , opens new tab fell 0.75% to 846.52. Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields hit an eight-month high, buoyed by data showing the U.S. economy remained strong. The yield on 10-year notes rose 7.5 basis points to 4.691%, having peaked at 4.699%, the highest since April 26. "The 10-year continues to inch higher and the equity market hasn't picked up on the fact that bond yields are rising, and rising long-term yields is not good for equities," Latif added. The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, rose 0.33% to 108.67, with the euro down 0.47% at $1.0341. The greenback rose to a near six-month peak against the Japanese yen after the U.S. data. It was up 0.23% at 157.96 yen . Earlier in the global session, the dollar hit its highest since July at 158.425 yen. Oil prices settled higher, driven by concerns over limited supply from Russia and Iran because of Western sanctions and expected higher Chinese demand. Brent crude futures settled up 0.98% at $77.05 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude finished at $74.25 a barrel, up 0.94%. Spot gold rose 0.53% to $2,649.38 an ounce. U.S. gold futures settled 0.7% higher at $2,665.40. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-wrapup-1-2025-01-07/
