Month: June 2025

India cuts rates more than expected to boost economy

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The Reserve Bank of India cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point, delivering a bigger than expected move to support the economy as concerns ease over inflation. The central bank cut on Friday lowered the benchmark repo rate to 5.5 per cent. Economists’ consensus forecasts were for a 0.25 per cent cut. It means the bank has now reduced its benchmark rate measure by 1 per cent…

Big shipowners take wind out of US sails, continue to order vessels from China

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While a US port fee targeting ships linked to China has made some vessel buyers hesitant, major shipping companies – including Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest – are opting to continue working with Chinese shipyards, saying their competitiveness cannot be easily matched in the short term. Advertisement Despite the United States’ determination to challenge China’s dominance in global shipbuilding, MSC senior vice-president Marie-Caroline Laurent told the Nor-Shipping Forum in Oslo this week that the port fee would not be a barrier to ordering more vessels from China, the…

Postcard from Taiwan: the holiday islands on the frontline

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Strangely for a cluster of islands at the frontline of global geopolitical tension, there is something remarkably calming about a visit to Kinmen. There are few cars on the roads, the driver who picks me up from the airport rarely exceeds 50km/h and in villages and towns, the pace is leisurely, the shopkeepers relaxed. It’s a far cry from the frenetic energy and dazzling sights, sounds and smells I experienced…

Indian carmakers in Chinese trouble as rare earths supply runs short

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This article is an on-site version of the India Business Briefing newsletter. To receive it in your inbox regularly, sign up if you’re a premium subscriber, or upgrade your subscription here. Good morning. The central bank will announce its rate decision later today. Going by our poll on Tuesday, most of you seem to be expecting a 0.5 percentage point cut. If I were being optimistic I’d agree, but realistically I expect it to be 0.25 — we’ll soon see which is right. In other news: we’ve just passed the six-month…

China scientists put direct quantum communications tech to test in space flight

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Advertisement A laser module and a phase encoding device, developed at the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, were on board a Yuanxingzhe-1 rocket that reached 2.5km (1.55 miles) during a two-minute vertical flight testing its reusability last Thursday. “The launch mainly tested the robustness of the modules against various environmental stresses encountered during rocket ascent, such as vibration and radiation,” the academy said on its official social media account on Wednesday. The test marked a key step in China’s transition from experimental validation to the construction of a fully…

Trump and Xi break the ice

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US President Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping agreed to launch a new round of high-level trade talks, the European Central Bank cut interest rates by a quarter point and Europe is being flooded with steel diverted from the US because of high tariffs. Plus, the FT’s Aanu Adeoye explains how a Russia-backed junta leader in Burkina Faso became an icon across Africa. Mentioned in this podcast: Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agree to launch new round of trade talks Christine Lagarde signals ECB rate-cutting ‘nearly concluded’ ‘The cult…

‘Total discrimination’: Chinese students facing US visa ban say their lives are in limbo

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Chinese students in the United States are questioning their future in the country after the state department announced last week that it would “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students and enhance scrutiny of future applications from China and Hong Kong. Chinese students hoping to study at Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university, are under particular pressure after the Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it was banning the school from enrolling new foreign students. The presidential proclamation cited Harvard’s links with China as a particular cause for concern. For…

Any respite for Japan’s bonds is likely to be short-term

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The writer is the Apac developed markets rates strategist at Société Générale The attention of global investors is turning more to Japanese bond markets for good reason. The fragile supply-demand imbalance for longer-dated bonds in Japan has been broken by a slowdown in domestic investor demand with 30-year yields briefly touching record highs in late May. With yields becoming more attractive, there’s been a return of the narrative that Japanese…

No US tariffs on ‘unavailable natural resources’: commerce chief

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US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday said Washington would refrain from imposing tariffs on natural resources the country does not hold in abundance amid tough questioning by House lawmakers about American consumers facing rising prices. Advertisement “In our trade deals, our expectation is … we will not have tariffs on unavailable natural resources, but we will have market access for our farmers and our ranchers,” said Lutnick in testimony at a budget hearing of the House Appropriations Committee. Pressed by both US congresswoman Grace Meng of New York about…