The deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, Yi Gang, commented on the recent fall of the yuan against the dollar in an interview with state-run media on Sunday. He insisted that the yuan remains stable and strong against most currencies, with the exception of the dollar.

The yuan has continued to fall against the dollar since the beginning of this month amid the worldwide trend of a strong dollar.

The yuan slumped to its lowest point against the dollar in 8 years and 5 months, or since the 2008 global financial crisis.

The downward trend has triggered speculation that the uncertain future of the Chinese economy is causing the currency to continue falling.

Yi told the media that the recent fluctuations in the yuan's value have been caused by external factors, such as the US presidential election result and growing sentiment among market players that the US Federal Reserve could soon raise the key interest rate.

He said the quotation of the Chinese currency is decided not only in reference to the US dollar, but also to 12 other key currencies. He said the yuan remains stable and strong against those 12 currencies.

Regarding China's shrinking foreign exchange reserves, Yi said China's figure remains the highest in the world, and that the country holds more than enough of such reserves.

He admitted that there are comparatively strong trends of Chinese people seeking stable assets abroad.

But he said he believes money will return to China if its economy becomes stronger again.

Samsung's board of directors would hold a meeting on Tuesday and formally respond to Elliott's proposals, the paper said. The Korea Exchange separately asked Samsung to comment by 6 p.m. (4.00 a.m. ET/0900 GMT) on whether it planned a spinoff.

The world's top smartphone maker said in late October it would respond to Elliott's proposals and disclose plans for shareholder returns by the end of November.

Volkswagen will hold a minority stake in the joint venture, SOVAC Production SPA, which will produce vehicles from the Volkswagen, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, SEAT and Skoda brands, the German carmaker said.

"The Volkswagen Group opted for participation in SOVAC Production SPA as we have co-operated successfully with our sales partner SOVAC for many years," Volkswagen executive Josef Baumert said in a statement.

"For us, this is a logical step towards increasing vehicle sales in Algeria in the long term."

SOVAC has been a sales partner for Volkswagen since 2001, Volkswagen said, adding it delivered 30,000 new vehicles via SOVAC in 2015. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Mark Potter)

Virtually every American analyst agrees on what Trump should do to meet the No. 1 threat: drop his plans of confronting China on trade to obtain its assistance on “denuclearizing” the Kim regime.

This line of thinking is not new and ignores 13 years of American foreign policy failure. In fact, it’s possible the opposite is true, that waging a trade war on China may be the only way to obtain Beijing’s cooperation on North Korea.

It’s not hard to see why the outgoing administration thinks the North is such a danger. At this time, Kim Jong Un, the regime’s unstable ruler, can press a button and send three types of missiles to the lower 48 states, the Taepodong-2; the road-mobile KN-08; and the KN-08 variant, the KN-14. Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center thinks the KN-14 might be able to reach Washington, D.C.

The consensus is that North Korea cannot mate a nuclear warhead to these launchers, but in, say, four years, it will have that capability as well. The North already possesses a nuke that fits atop its Nodong intermediate-range missile, which can travel a little under a thousand miles.

How did North Korea, one of the world’s most destitute states, develop its nukes and missiles in the face of opposition of virtually all the international community? The simple answer is that Presidents Obama and Bush relentlessly pursued ineffective policies.

With the regrettable exception of about a month in early 2012, when his negotiators crafted the misguided Leap Day deal, Obama practiced a policy of “strategic patience,” not talking to the North Koreans until they showed good faith. At the same time, Washington worked with Beijing to impose sanctions as the North detonated four nuclear devices during the president’s eight years.

That Obama policy was an understandable reaction to Bush’s failed efforts. The 43rd president, placing a higher priority on integrating China into the international system than disarming the North, gave Beijing a lead role in multilateral negotiations, the so-called Six-Party talks.

BMW will rework the front and rear of the i3 and equip the car with a new battery to increase its range substantially beyond the current 300 km maximum, the paper said, adding that the increase would be below 50 percent.

BMW has been torn about whether to accelerate development of new electric cars given its expensive early investment has only resulted in lackluster sales, with 25,000 i3s delivered last year.

To help improve sales, BMW has already increased the battery range of its i3 city car by 50 percent this year.

BMW was not immediately available for comment on the newspaper report.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; editing by David Clarke)

Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) Saturday said the total represented a 21.6 percent increase from the same day of last year and 290 million dollars above the predicted 3.05 billion dollars sales for the traditional shopping day after Thanksgiving holiday.

The Black Friday this year also registered as the first day to ever generate over a billion dollars in online sales from mobile devices. Sales through mobile devices totaled 1.2 billion dollars, or 36 percent of all online sales for the day and an increase of 33 percent over the same day of last year.

The ADI research is based on the analysis of select, anonymous, and aggregated data from more than 5,000 companies that use the Adobe Digital Marketing Cloud to obtain real-time data and analysis of activity on websites, social media and advertising.

About 800 government officials and business leaders from the 2 countries took part in a forum in Beijing on Saturday to discuss environment-related issues.

Japanese industry minister Hiroshige Seko said that in the energy-conservation and environmental sectors, China is strong in production capacity, while Japan has experience and technological knowhow in both fields.

Seko added he believes the 2 countries can build "a win-win relationship."

He then signed a memorandum on energy cooperation with China's National Development and Reform Commission Minister, Xu Shaoshi.

The memorandum covers training of experts and the extending of financial assistance for energy-saving and environmental efforts.

During the forum, it was announced that public entities and companies of the 2 countries had signed up for 28 projects in the past year.

At a subcommittee meeting, the participants also heard about the results of joint research on setting up more charging stations for electric vehicles in China.

A Japanese participant said a meeting like this is significant as it allows the sharing of technology needed by China.

The protests, which began five weeks ago, were the largest in South Korea since pro-democracy demonstrations of the 1980s.
Those attending on Saturday came from a cross-section of South Korean society, with farmers, Buddhist monks and university students all involved.

"I was watching the news and thought this cannot go on - people really want her to step down but she hasn't," one of the protesters, Kwak Bo-youn, told Reuters.
"This is the second time for me to the protests, but the first time for my husband and kids."
Ms Park, whose approval rating has dropped to 5%, apologised earlier this month for putting "too much faith in a personal relationship", and has pledged to co-operate in an official investigation into the scandal.
South Korea's constitution does not allow a sitting president to be prosecuted, and Ms Park has 15 months left in her term.
But now that prosecutors have directly linked her to the scandal, it is possible she could be impeached for breaking the law.
Prosecutors are expected to bring charges against Ms Choi, along with two former presidential aides. She was arrested earlier this month.
Ms Choi is accused of trying to extort huge sums of money from South Korean companies, and suspected of using her friendship with Ms Park to solicit business donations for a non-profit fund she controlled.