2025-09-25 16:16

BUENOS AIRES, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Argentina has reimplemented export taxes , opens new tab on grains and their by-products after temporarily suspending them for two days as it has hit a target sales cap of $7 billion, Argentina's ARCA fiscal agency said on Wednesday in a post on social media. On Monday, the government issued a decree suspending export taxes on soy, corn, wheat and their by-products, including biodiesel, aiming to accelerate sales abroad and secure much-needed dollars to stabilize the flagging peso currency. Sign up here. Argentina, one of the world's top grains suppliers, relies on the agricultural sector to generate foreign currency. The suspension was set to last through the end of October, or until declared exports reached $7 billion. Exports reached the sales limit after two days. A tax suspension on beef and poultry products, also launched earlier this week, will continue through the end of October, without a sales cap, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said on Thursday. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/argentina-reapplies-export-taxes-grains-by-products-2025-09-25/

2025-09-25 15:35

Sept 25 (Reuters) - Philips (PHG.AS) , opens new tab is actively engaged with policymakers in Washington about investigations into U.S. imports of medical technology items but does not expect an immediate impact from the probes, it said on Thursday. The U.S. Department of Commerce said on Wednesday it had opened new national security investigations into the import of personal protective equipment, medical items, robotics and industrial machinery. Sign up here. The so-called Section 232 investigations, which were opened on September 2 but not publicly disclosed previously, could be used as a basis for higher import tariffs on a wide swath of medical and industrial goods. That could mean increased levies on imported face masks, syringes and infusion pumps as well as robotics and industrial machinery like programmable computer-controlled mechanical systems and industrial stamping and pressing machines. "At this stage, details are limited, and a range of potential outcomes remain under discussion," Philips told Reuters in an emailed statement. Shares in the Dutch healthcare technology company were down almost 3% at around 0845 GMT, and those of its European med-tech peers Siemens Healthineers , Coloplast (COLOb.CO) , opens new tab, Sonova (SOON.S) , opens new tab, Demant (DEMANT.CO) , opens new tab, GN Store Nord (GN.CO) , opens new tab, Smith+Nephew (SN.L) , opens new tab fell between 1% and 4%. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/philips-talks-with-us-over-probes-medical-technology-imports-2025-09-25/

2025-09-25 14:33

MEXICO CITY, Sept 25 (Reuters) - U.S. tech firm CloudHQ will invest $4.8 billion in a project to build six data centers in Mexico's central Queretaro state over the coming years, a company executive said on Thursday, adding these would be used to fuel cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Speaking at a press conference with top government officials, Chief Operating Officer Keith Harney said CloudHQ was seeking a long-term tenant lease before it proceeds with the construction of the site. Sign up here. These would be fueled by a 900-megawatt private substation, he said. "Starting up investments in data centers is important for Mexico," added President Claudia Sheinbaum. "It brings the country the capacity to process data related to artificial intelligence and information technology." "We also need these investments to bring benefits for the community," she added. Data centers store the increasingly vast amounts of digital information kept and processed on the internet, but they require large amounts of constant power supply and cooling systems to stop their computer systems from overheating. Harney said the data centers would use a waterless cooling system, and Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the facility's water consumption would be "very low." Queretaro, like many parts of central and northern Mexico, has faced years of water stress as industrial projects and agriculture weigh on the area's groundwater systems while climate change makes rainfall and temperature less predictable. Regarding energy, Harney said the project was aiming to use clean energy, but since the data centers would demand large amounts of constant power this would not be used exclusively. The site is expected to be ready by 2027, when it should provide 900 permanent jobs at the site, he said. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cloudhq-invest-48-billion-build-mexico-data-centers-2025-09-25/

2025-09-25 13:28

SAO PAULO, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Inflation in Brazil sped up in the month to mid-September after briefly dipping into negative territory a month earlier, though it still undershot market expectations, data from statistics agency IBGE showed on Thursday. The figures come as Brazil's central bank signaled it was entering a "new stage" of steady interest rates for a prolonged period, following an aggressive monetary tightening aimed at curbing sticky inflation. Sign up here. Consumer prices as measured by the IPCA-15 index rose 0.48% in the period, IBGE said, up from a 0.14% decline last month. The reading, nonetheless, came in below the 0.51% increase forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. In the 12 months to mid-September, inflation reached 5.32%, below the 5.36% expected in the Reuters poll but still far above the central bank's 3% target, which has a tolerance range of 1.5 percentage points on either side. Brazil's central bank last week kept interest rates at a near two-decade high of 15%, signaling a prolonged pause after a tightening cycle that lifted borrowing costs by a total 450 basis points since September 2024. The bank expects inflation to hover near the official goal in the first quarter of 2028, but still fail to meet it. Prices in the month to mid-September rose in five of the nine groups surveyed by IBGE. Housing prices jumped 3.31% after a 1.13% drop in the previous month, driven by higher electricity costs. But closely-watched food and beverage prices, which pushed overall inflation higher earlier in the year, fell 0.35% in the period, marking their fourth consecutive monthly decline. "The overall picture looks benign. The recent rebound in inflation is largely explained by adverse base effects," said Andres Abadia, chief Latin America economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. "Our base case is for disinflation to continue, with inflation ending the year around 5%." https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-mid-september-inflation-rebounds-higher-housing-prices-2025-09-25/

2025-09-25 12:57

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Thursday said the U.S. has made enormous progress on trade talks with China in the last few months but considerable work remains. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are discussing a range of things including Chinese purchases of Russia's oil exports, Hassett said in an interview with Fox Business Network. Washington has highlighted China and India as contributors to the Russia-Ukraine war due to their purchases of oil from Moscow. Sign up here. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are talking to their counterparts practically every day. "I feel like compared to a few months ago, we've made an enormous amount of progress," Hassett said. Hassett said there were many items on the table in trade negotiations, adding that "we care very much about the fact that China has stopped buying our agricultural products." "We're in a productive negotiation and looking forward to making a lot of progress between now and say, Thanksgiving," he told "Mornings with Maria." https://www.reuters.com/sports/trump-visit-yankees-stadium-new-york-thursday-white-house-says-2025-09-09/

2025-09-25 12:41

China has history of setting targets it can achieve China's renewable capacity is already the world's largest Goal marks first time China has promised to cut emissions BEIJING, Sept 25 (Reuters) - China's climate goals made public on Wednesday promise the continued expansion of renewable energy, which it has already added at a rapid pace, but make no specific commitment to increase its share in power generation or scale back coal. In announcing the country's first carbon reduction goals, President Xi Jinping said China would increase its wind and solar power capacity, already the world's largest, by six times from 2020 levels to 3,600 gigawatts by 2035. Sign up here. Last year, China reached a target to bring total wind and solar generating capacity to 1,200 GW six years ahead of schedule, reflecting what analysts said is its penchant for setting goals it knows it can meet. Yao Zhe, global policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia, said this week's updated targets from the world's largest carbon emitter were again unambitious. "If wind and solar expansion continues at its current pace, total installations will exceed 3,000 GW by 2030 and reach 4,500 GW by 2035," Yao said. CURTAILMENT, NOT CAPACITY IS THE ISSUE Anders Hove, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said China's renewables challenge is not capacity but surging curtailment rates. Curtailment occurs when grid managers limit the power coming onto the grid to maintain a balance with demand or due to infrastructure constraints. Hove said China should focus more on ensuring that renewable power goes into the grid, displacing electricity from coal and gas. Xi said China would aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7%-10% from the peak, a level it has not yet defined but that analysts expected to happen earlier than the official 2030 goal. The targets announced on Wednesday were the first since China in 2020 said it would hit peak carbon emissions by 2030 and bring the economy to carbon neutrality by 2060. Although the new goals, including the renewable target, were expected to provide a clearer roadmap to achieving progress, the headline number fell short of the 30% emissions cut observers said is needed to keep China on track for carbon neutrality by 2060. Even so, the measured targets were a contrast to the speech made by U.S. President Donald Trump, who dismissed climate change as a "con job". "There's a lot of uncertainty around demand growth in China and the need to allow for continued growth from traditional users as well as new users, like data centres and others," said Michael Davidson, a University of California, San Diego, professor who researches renewable energy systems and carbon neutrality in China. "China will be very hesitant to put any caps on what that demand growth could be," he said. Xi stopped short of setting new targets for coal or reiterating a target from 2020, when China said it would "phase down" coal use between 2026 and 2030. It has continued to build and permit new coal mines. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/china-sets-renewables-goal-it-can-easily-surpass-analysts-say-2025-09-25/