Business

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned Britain on Monday against massive corporate tax cuts. “Britain is still a member of the European Union,” Schaeuble said when asked whether plans by Britain to cut corporate tax could trigger a dumping competition. “So they are bound by European law.” A spokeswoman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday the government had already outlined measures to cut corporation tax to 17 percent by 2020 and described any talk of further cuts as “speculative”. (Reuters)

European shares fell on Monday, weighed down by losses among pharmaceuticals and financials and by worries that next month’s Italian referendum on constitutional reform could create political instability. The pan-European STOXX 600 fell 0.5 percent by 1000 GMT. Italy’s blue chip index fell 1 percent after hitting its lowest point since end-September as investors priced in a possible rejection of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s reform plan. Investors are concerned that if Renzi loses the referendum, as the latest polls predict, the Italian government would fall into a serious crisis, threatening to destabilize the whole continent ahead of a string of national elections next year. (Reuters)

The euro rose from an 11-month low against a broadly weaker dollar on Monday, with political developments seen by some as making next year’s French and German elections less uncertain. Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy was ousted from the race for the presidency over the weekend, leaving former prime ministers Francois Fillon and Alain Juppe to battle it out to become the Republican party’s candidate for the election in May. The euro climbed half a percent to $1.0645, having hit its weakest levels since December 2015 on Friday. The greenback has climbed more than 3 percent since the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election earlier this month. (Reuters)

Prime Minister Theresa May will unveil her new industrial strategy on Monday, pledging to spend billions of pounds on science, technology and research to spur a new “ambitious” way of doing business in Britain. May is keen to persuade business to back her push to create “the conditions where winners can emerge and grow”. Her speech to the CBI, a leading business organization, is also aimed at easing concerns among company bosses who had been alarmed by a plan from May to put workers on company boards and to tackle excessive executive pay. May’s spokeswoman said the prime minister would reiterate her commitment to having the lowest corporation tax among the world’s 20 largest economies. (Reuters)

China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co is in talks to buy as much as $2.3 billion in Japanese residential property assets from Blackstone Group, in what would be Japan’s biggest property deal since the global financial crisis. The US asset manager is discussing the sale of properties it had bought from investors, including in a deal with General Electric Co in 2014, according to sources. For Anbang, seeking to diversify its assets globally, the deal would be its first foray into Japanese real estate. The Chinese firm last year lost out to a Japanese developer Hulic Co in bidding for property asset manager Simplex Investment. (Reuters)

Top European stock indices rose at the start of trading on Monday, reversing some of Friday’s losses, as Tokyo equities showed gains on the back of a weaker yen. Frankfurt’s DAX 30 climbed 0.1 percent to 10,670.97 compared with Friday’s close, while the Paris CAC 40 was also 0.1 percent up at 4,507.82 around 0830 GMT. London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index rose 0.3 percent to 6,793.70. (AFP)