Airbus has struck a deal to increase the number of planes it makes in China as part of a state visit by French President Emmanuel Macron.
The European giant aims to produce six of its A320 jets each month by 2020 at its final assembly plant near Beijing.
During his three-day visit, Mr Macron said both France and China must open up to doing business with each other.
At present, he said, France has "access to markets which is unbalanced [and] unsatisfying".
He told an audience of French and Chinese business leaders: "If we don't deal with this responsibly, the first natural reaction will be to close up on both sides."
As part of the agreement, Airbus said it will "enhance its industrial partnership in Tianjin" which is one of four global facilities that assemble the A320 family of planes, whose wings are made in the UK.
Airbus said it hopes to "strengthen the cooperation with regards to technical innovation, engineering capabilities and supply chain expansion".
Airbus currently produces four aircraft a month at the facility but said this will rise to five by 2019 before reaching a monthly turnout of six jets by early 2020.
The company is one of a number of businesses travelling with Mr Macron on his first state visit since being elected last May.
He has called on Europe to take a more coordinated approach to trade with China.
Mr Macron said that in the past, countries had come to China with different agendas and varying degrees of openness.
"We need a coordinated European approach... that gives China more visibility about our agenda," Mr Macron said.
"That's why France is in favour of defining strategic sectors where we want to protect investments... It's a question of sovereignty as you yourselves have understood very well."
Japan's Nikkei index hits 26-year high
added 0.6% to its value to end at 23,849.99 when the markets reopened following a public holiday on Monday - its highest level since November 1991.
The index was helped by gains on Wall Street during the holiday.
The Nikkei's rise follows Japan's longest period of economic growth in more than two decades.
Japan's economy has been boosted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Abenomics reform package and a rise in business investment.
He introduced the reforms in December 2012 with a plan to take Japan's economy out of a long period of stagnant growth using the three "arrows" of Abenomics - monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and structural reforms.
This put the country in its longest stretch of uninterrupted growth since at least 1994, when comparable data was made available.
In an attempt to revive the economy in 2001, the country introduced a policy of zero interest rates to make it cheaper for consumers and companies to borrow money rather than save it
Luxury car sales high
Luxury car sales in India grew at its fastest clip since 2012 with a near 17 percent jump in sales in 2017 as German carmaker Mercedes Benz retained its crown at the top of the pile for the third straight year.
Mercedes registered sales of 15,300 units during the year, a growth of 16 percent over 2016 and was the only company to report five-digit sales for the year. Arch rival BMW reported a 24.6 percent growth at 9,800 units while Audi's tally was almost stagnant at 7,876 units.
"Clocking more than 15,000 sales units is one of the many first-of-its kind achievements for Mercedes-Benz in the luxury car segment in India, and we are glad to achieve them and spearhead the industry, firmly," said Roland Folger, managing director and CEO, Mercedes Benz India.
Though the numbers suggest otherwise, the year was not a smooth sailing for the industry. While the first three months of the year were marred by the aftermath of the demonetization exercise of November 2016, the roll out of the GST in the middle of the year was a sweet-sour event for the sector. While initially, prices came down when GST on luxury cars were restricted to 43 percent in July, the imposition of cess two months later put paid to hopes of a bumper year.
"In principle, there is no doubt GST is a great step. It brings in uniform taxation that is simpler and makes doing business in the country easier," says Rahil Ansari, head, Audi India. "The frequent changes in taxes however did confuse the buyers. We initially passed on the entire benefit only to undo it a couple of months later. So initially we saw a lot of traction but it became a little more difficult later on."
With a slew of launches, 2018 promises to be an even better year. Audi will bring in a facelift of one of its largest selling SUVs--the Q5, later this month while Jaguar Land Rover will also launch its new SUV--Velar. At the super luxury end, Lamborghini will also drive in its own SUV, the Urus
Jewellers & bullion traders spar over gold import duty
Indian jewellers and bullion traders are divided over a potential reduction of import duty on the yellow metal, with a section urging New Delhi to cut the levy and the other opposing any change to the tariff structure to protect the interests of sovereign gold bond investor.
The All India Gem & Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) has sought the duty to be reduced to 4% from 10% in the upcoming budget. The India Bullion & Jewellery Association (IBJA), by contrast, says that any reduction will require New Delhi to put in place a compensation mechanism for sovereign gold bond investors who had factored in the 10% duty while buying the instrument.
Nitin Khandelwal, GJF chairman, said that the duty was levied to curb the current account deficit (CAD). "But CAD is under control now. On the contrary, gold smuggling has gone up due to high import duty," he said. The World Gold Council has pegged smuggled gold in the range of 100-120 tonnes in 2017.
"The commerce ministry has often suggested reducing the gold import duty to 4% to curb the smuggling of gold. Lowering the duty structure will not only boost customer demand, but also help the industry become more organised and compliant," said Khandelwal.
But Surendra Mehta, national secretary of IBJA, said that the government is unlikely to reduce the import duty on gold.
"Sovereign gold bonds have been issued to investors at a rate that includes the import duty of 10%. What would happen to investors now if the government were to reduce the duty suddenly? In that case, the government will have to work out a mechanism to compensate the investors," Mehta said. Bonds under the scheme earn an interest of 2.5% a year, payable every six months.
The industry has also urged the government to exclude gold in any form in Free Trade Agreements until import duties are brought on a par. If not, the government should impose import duty of 15% on gold articles, it said.
Samsung forecasts record profits but misses expectations
Samsung Electronics expects to deliver record profits for the last three months of 2017, but the estimate missed analyst expectations.
The world's biggest memory chip maker forecast operating earnings of 15.1 trillion won ($14.1bn; £10.4bn) - up 64% from a year earlier.
But while chip prices boosted margins, a stronger won weighed on the figures.
The operating profit forecast is slightly below the 15.9 trillion won estimated by analysts surveyed by Reuters.
Customers unfazed
The forecast keeps Samsung on track for record annual profits, in a year when prices for computer memory chips kept surging.
But the 2018 outlook is less certain, with Samsung shares having fallen nearly 10% from their all-time high in November, as some investors bet on an end to the chip boom.
Meanwhile, the market for smartphones and other mobile devices is facing increasing competition from Chinese rivals.
Samsung Electronics is regarded as the jewel in the crown of the Samsung Group conglomerate, which is made up of 60 interlinked companies and is one of South Korea's massive family-run businesses known as chaebols.
Japan's central bank trims bond purchases, prompting stimulus withdrawal talk
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Speculation the Bank of Japan may slow its monetary stimulus this year gripped the currency market on Tuesday after the central bank trimmed the amount of its purchases of Japanese government bonds.
While the bond-buying operations are usually seen as a routine affair, traders appeared to latch on to the BOJ announcement that it will buy less of the long-dated bonds, sending the dollar down about 0.5 percent against the yen.
"This (announcement) adds to speculation that BOJ may remove monetary stimulus," Maybank analysts said in a note after the announcement.
BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has repeatedly dismissed the chance of withdrawing stimulus any time soon, even as some policymakers have recently expressed concerns over the perceived demerits of monetary easing, especially the hit on financial institutions' profit margins.
That has led to speculation that the central bank may have to consider raising its yield targets or slow purchases of risky assets later in 2018. A host of developed nations have started to tighten policy, partly thanks to a synchronized uptick in global growth.
The BOJ pledged in 2016 to guide short-term interest rates at minus 0.1 percent and 10-year bond yields at around zero percent. It also keeps a loose pledge to increase its bond holdings at 80 trillion yen ($710.29 billion) per year, although its buying has recently slowed.
On Tuesday, the central bank reduced its purchases of JGBs with 10 to 25 years left to maturity and those with 25 to 40 years to maturity by 10 billion yen ($88.39 million) each, from its previous operations.
It also offered to buy 190 billion yen of 10-25 year JGBs and 80 billion yen of 25-40 year JGBs.
The announcement pushed the dollar to a session low of 112.50 yen, down around 0.5 percent on the day.
Japanese bond prices dipped, lifting 20- to 40-year yields to one-month highs. The benchmark 10-year JGB yield ticked up 1 basis point to 0.065 percent.
POLICY INCONSISTENCY?
Since it adopted the yield curve control policy in 2016, the BOJ has occasionally tweaked its bond operations, with officials saying any changes are meant to keep bond yields in line with its policy goal and not to telegraph hints on its future policy.
But some analysts say the inconsistency of the two policy targets requires a change of tack from the BOJ.
"It's better to use the upcoming Jan. 23 meeting to tweak the policy - with a fresh balance sheet target at 40 trillion yen," Westpac analysts said in a note.
The difficulty is that inflation remains far off the BOJ's 2 percent target. Slow wage growth is one of the challenges.
Data on Tuesday showed Japan's real wages, which are adjusted for inflation, posted their first gain in 11 months in November, helped by a rise in year-end bonuses. But the increase was just 0.1 percent and economists warn that wages are unlikely to keep up with general price increases, which could hurt consumption.
"Regular pay is set to strengthen only slowly ... the Bank of Japan's 2 percent inflation target won't be reached anytime soon," said Marcel Thieliant, senior Japan economist at Capital Economics.
Luxury car sales in India grew at its fastest clip since 2012 with a near 17 percent jump in sales in 2017 as German carmaker Mercedes Benz retained its crown at the top of the pile for the third straight year.
Mercedes registered sales of 15,300 units during the year, a growth of 16 percent over 2016 and was the only company to report five-digit sales for the year. Arch rival BMW reported a 24.6 percent growth at 9,800 units while Audi's tally was almost stagnant at 7,876 units.
"Clocking more than 15,000 sales units is one of the many first-of-its kind achievements for Mercedes-Benz in the luxury car segment in India, and we are glad to achieve them and spearhead the industry, firmly," said Roland Folger, managing director and CEO, Mercedes Benz India.
Though the numbers suggest otherwise, the year was not a smooth sailing for the industry. While the first three months of the year were marred by the aftermath of the demonetization exercise of November 2016, the roll out of the GST in the middle of the year was a sweet-sour event for the sector. While initially, prices came down when GST on luxury cars were restricted to 43 percent in July, the imposition of cess two months later put paid to hopes of a bumper year.
"In principle, there is no doubt GST is a great step. It brings in uniform taxation that is simpler and makes doing business in the country easier," says Rahil Ansari, head, Audi India. "The frequent changes in taxes however did confuse the buyers. We initially passed on the entire benefit only to undo it a couple of months later. So initially we saw a lot of traction but it became a little more difficult later on."
With a slew of launches, 2018 promises to be an even better year. Audi will bring in a facelift of one of its largest selling SUVs--the Q5, later this month while Jaguar Land Rover will also launch its new SUV--Velar. At the super luxury end, Lamborghini will also drive in its own SUV, the Urus
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