Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Morning business round-up: UK economic growth revised down



What made the business news in Asia and Europe this morning? Here's our daily business round-up:

Marketwatch ticker

The UK's economic performance for the last three months of 2011 has been revised down to a contraction of 0.3%.

The first two estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed a contraction of 0.2%.

The ONS blamed the revision on the transport and communications and business services and finance sectors.

The annual figure for 2011 growth has also been revised down to 0.7% from 0.8%.

Natural disasters sent the insurance market Lloyd's of London to a loss for 2011.

It said it was its worst year for catastrophe claims.

It lost £516m in 2011, compared with a pre-tax profit of £2.2bn in 2010.

It incurred net claims of £12.9bn in the year, including £4.6bn of catastrophe claims.

Catastrophes during the year included flooding in Australia and Thailand, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the earthquake in New Zealand.

In Australia, Apple is offering refunds on the new iPad after claims of misleading advertising.

Some Australian customers felt misled about the 4G capabilities of the new tablet.

The country's consumer watchdog took Apple to court for false advertising because the iPad does not work on Australia's 4G network.

Apple's lawyers said they were willing to publish a clarification, but the company does not accept that it misled customers.

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The Indian government has said it will review a new gold tax.

The review of the tax, on unbranded gold jewellery, comes after 11 days of protests by gold shop owners.

Shops have been closed in some parts of India since the levy was announced in the federal budget on 16 March.

However authorities said they would not budge on an import duty hike from 2% to 4%.

India is the biggest importer of gold in the world.

The Hong Kong government has won an appeal that could have allowed foreign maids to apply for residency.

In September the High Court said excluding maids from a rule allowing foreigners to settle in the city after seven years was unconstitutional.

The government appealed, fearing the ruling could lead to more than 100,000 foreign maids winning residency rights.

The case centred on Evangeline Banao Vallejos, a maid from the Philippines.

The latest edition of the BBC's Business Daily looks at China as it gets ready to switch to a new set of leaders.

It discusses what that could mean for the country's economy, its rigid market controls, and for foreign investors.



Source & Image : BBC

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