
China's Central Bank Says Economy Is on Positive Track But Challenges Persist
China's economy is showing positive signs and confidence is building, but challenges such as insufficient domestic demand and deflationary pressure persist, according to the country's central bank.
The People's Bank of China, in a statement after its quarterly monetary policy committee meeting, said it will adopt a flexible approach to policymaking, taking into account both domestic and international conditions. Monetary policy will remain 'moderately loose,' with the aim of maintaining stable economic growth and prices within a reasonable range, it said.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
No, you're not dreaming: the Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 FF II C&D Dreamer is coming next week
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Lens-maker Venus Optics has officially announced that it will be releasing a new 12mm f/2.8 full-frame autofocus lens on June 25, 2025. The Laowa 12mm f/2.8 FF II C&D Dreamer will be available in Sony E and Nikon Z mounts with full autofocus, and there will also be Canon RF and L-mount Alliance versions, although these will be manual-focus only. While Venus Optics has garnered a stellar reputation for producing innovative and often unusual manual focus lenses with remarkably low distortion, this new lens is only the second from the brand to have autofocus, joining the recently released Laowa 10mm f/2.8 FF II C&D Dreamer, which again offers autofocus in its Nikon and Sony versions, with other mounts only having manual focus. According to Venus Optics, the 'C&D Dreamer' designation in its Laowa lens range is broken down as follows. The 'C' signifies a compact build, the 'D' means minimum distortion, and the 'Dreamer' bit is reserved for lenses that exhibit soft, artistic image rendering. Indeed, it is compact and light, weighing around 377 grams, depending on the lens mount, and has a reasonably svelte 72mm filter thread. And Venus Optics claims that it produces images with a near-zero distortion. We'll see if our tests bear this out when we get our hands on a review sample. It's not the first 12mm f/2.8 Laowa lens – that honor goes to the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D, which was released back in 2016. But while this 'Zero-D' model signifies a 'close-to-zero distortion' design, it is a significantly heftier lens, weighing in at around 609 grams, and is only available in manual focus, whatever the mount. While pricing details are expected to be officially released at the time of the announcement on June 25, I expect the lens will be competitively priced. As a rough guide, the autofocus versions of the Laowa 10mm f/2.8 lens cost £799 / £849 / AU$1,449.

Travel Weekly
2 hours ago
- Travel Weekly
Major names with minor beginnings
Christina Jelski What's in a name? I found myself pondering this age-old question during a media dinner hosted by Minor Hotels earlier this month, while listening to Marion Walsh-Hedouin, the group's global communications director, share details about the Bangkok-based company's early days. That included background on the group's name, which had always struck me as an odd fit for a fast-growing hospitality empire that now spans more than 560 properties across 58 countries. And in an industry where names like Ritz-Carlton and Waldorf Astoria convey luxury and refinement, "Minor" seems understated by comparison. Minor Hotels' roots can be traced to 1967, when American-born entrepreneur William Heinecke founded Minor Holdings. That name wasn't born out of focus groups, a shrewd business plan or a prestigious family surname. Instead, the name came about simply because Heinecke was 17 at the time, so he was literally a minor when he started his business. Despite choosing branding that essentially advertised his inexperience, Heinecke managed to build a substantial portfolio over nearly six decades, expanding the Minor Hotels fold with brands like Anantara, Avani, NH Hotels, NH Collection and Tivoli. The origin story got me thinking about other hotel brands with names of similarly unconventional origins. Take Richard Branson's Virgin Group, for example. When Branson and business partner Nik Powell founded the brand as a mail-order record company in 1970, they landed on the name Virgin "because they were entirely new to business," according to the company's website. Like Heinecke, they had no experience -- as well as no shame about making that fact known. But from that humble beginning, Virgin has evolved into a billion-dollar empire spanning airlines, space ventures, hotels and many other industries. Naivete, it seems, can be an underrated asset in the hospitality industry. But sometimes, the universe intervenes to save founders from their own worst naming instincts. Consider Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, whose founder, Isadore Sharp, originally wanted to call his hotel chain Thunderbird Inn. It would have been a fitting title for the company's first location, a modest "motor hotel" in downtown Toronto that opened in 1961. But as fate would have it, that name was already taken. So, a relative suggested the "Four Seasons." While Minor and Virgin embraced their inexperience, Four Seasons stumbled into a brand that has come to be synonymous with sophistication, with Sharp declaring that "there was no vision, there was no grand dream" in those early days, according to the company. The luxury hospitality brand, however, hasn't forgotten its roots. The name Thunderbird currently graces the employee cafeteria at Four Seasons' Toronto headquarters, a reminder of what might have been. Can you imagine a parallel universe where well-heeled travelers check into the Thunderbird Beverly Hills, or a newlyweds rave about their honeymoon at the Thunderbird George V Paris? It doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Four Seasons, does it? These companies were all able to flourish and become leaders in the industry despite their somewhat humble stories of branding based on youth, inexperience and happy accidents. It may go against conventional corporate wisdom these days, but perhaps the most powerful brand story may be admitting you didn't really have one to begin with.


Bloomberg
3 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Powell and Lagarde Count Cost of Trump's Turbulence
The global economy's concussion from five months of Donald Trump's presidency is likely to feature when five of the world's leading central bank chiefs discuss monetary policy in public on Tuesday. From tariff-related trade ructions to oil-price gyrations caused by Middle East hostilities, the question of how to handle the fallout from White House decisions may loom large as Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell speaks on a panel with peers from the euro zone, Japan, South Korea and the UK.