Reuters

By Dave Graham

ZURICH (Reuters) - An upcoming Ukraine peace summit, ostensibly the most ambitious bid in years by neutral Switzerland to mediate a major conflict, is instead showing how Swiss economic and security interests increasingly align with Western Europe over Russia.

This is the view of both Swiss advocates of closer cooperation with Western powers and nationalist opponents who say Switzerland is abandoning its neutral tradition... (continue reading...)

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese venture capitalists have warned the country's IPO freeze is starving tech startups of funds by keeping market participants locked into existing investments, undermining Beijing's current push to lift innovation in the economy.

Venture capital firms said at the three-day ChinaVenture Investment Conference in Shanghai that they were struggling to recoup investment through the traditional route of initial public offerings.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, is expected to report on Tuesday that first-quarter profit more than doubled on robust demand for artificial intelligence servers and after coming off a low base a year ago.

Last month, the company said first-quarter revenue slid 10% from a year earlier but it has been bullish about 2024.

Net profit for January-March for Apple's top iPhone assembler... (continue reading...)

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Honda Motor Co forecast a 2.8% rise in operating profit for this financial year, after it exceeded analysts' estimates in the fourth quarter as strong sales growth in the United States offset a decline in China.

Japan's second-largest automaker by volume forecast full-year operating profit would rise to 1.42 trillion yen ($9.13 billion) compared with an average profit estimate of 1.39 trillion yen in a poll of 22 analysts by... (continue reading...)

By Suban Abdulla and David Milliken

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's economy grew by the most in nearly in three years in the first quarter of 2024, ending the shallow recession it entered in the second half of last year and delivering a boost to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of an election.

The Office for National Statistics said gross domestic product expanded by 0.6% in the three months to March, the strongest growth since the fourth quarter... (continue reading...)