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17/01/2023

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan will take fiscal measures set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to meet its budgetary targets for the 2022-23 financial year, finance minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday.
The measures included reviewing subsidies in the farming and export sectors and shedding energy sector debt, he said.
The minister told a news conference in Islamabad that a "detailed discussion" had taken place with the IMF on the sidelines of a climate conference in Geneva on Monday, where the lender had emphasized a need to take the fiscal measures.

17/01/2023

BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany urgently needs more carbon-neutral energy at affordable prices if it is to maintain its global relevance as an industrial player, the president of German autos association VDA warned on Wednesday, warning that it was already falling behind.
Hildegard Mueller, who has led the organisation since February 2020, said the energy subsidies offered so far were "not suitable or applicable".
"This is not enough ... we need more energy and consequential help for the economy," Mueller said at the association's annual news conference. "Other global regions are overtaking us."

16/01/2023

PARIS (Reuters) - French unions and opposition parties on Wednesday said they would fight hard to try to derail a highly unpopular plan to make people work longer before receiving a pension.
President Emmanuel Macron's government, in turn, said it wasn't afraid of a nationwide call for strikes and protests on Jan. 19 and would carry on with its plan.
The French will have to work two years longer to age 64 before retiring, if the reform, announced on Tuesday, is adopted by parliament. They will also need to work longer to get a full pension.

16/01/2023

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's 11-day-old government braced on Wednesday for more anti-democratic protests by far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro's supporters whose rampage through government threatened the country's political stability.
The government of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva bolstered security measures nationwide as flyers appeared on pro-Bolsonaro social media calling for mass demonstrations in Brazilian cities to "retake power."
"We have measures for this Wednesday to reinforce security throughout the country since pamphlets of new demonstrations have been circulated," Lula's chief of staff Rui Costa said late on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting.

15/01/2023

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Retail sales volumes in Brazil posted in November their biggest drop in five months, government statistics agency IBGE said on Wednesday, affected by higher fuel prices and a weak Black Friday performance last year.
Brazil's retail sales fell 0.6% in November from October, IBGE reported, a deeper drop than the 0.3% one expected by economists polled by Reuters and the first negative reading since July.
The latest data came in as consumption stutters in Brazil amid a lack of credit growth, higher interest rates and rising consumer prices, research manager Cristiano Santos said in a statement.

15/01/2023

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank slashed its 2023 growth forecasts on Tuesday to levels teetering on the brink of recession for many countries as the impact of central bank rate hikes intensifies, Russia's war in Ukraine continues, and the world's major economic engines sputter.
The development lender said it expected global GDP growth of 1.7% in 2023, the slowest pace outside the 2009 and 2020 recessions since 1993. In its previous Global Economic Prospects report in June 2022, the bank had forecast 2023 global growth at 3.0%.
It forecast global growth in 2024 to pick up to 2.7% -- below the 2.9% estimate for 2022 -- and said average growth for the 2020-2024 period would be under 2% -- the slowest five-year pace since 1960.

14/01/2023

South Korean solar energy company Qcells on Wednesday said it would invest $2.5 billion to expand its manufacturing capacity in the United States, creating as many as 2,500 jobs in Georgia.
The announcement by the solar division of conglomerate Hanwha Corp is one of the biggest corporate manufacturing commitments since the passage of U.S. President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes over $300 billion in subsidies to tackle climate change.
Some of those incentives are aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing of clean energy products that are currently made primarily in China, such as solar cells and panels.

14/01/2023

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A tumultuous start for the new U.S. Congress has some investors worried about what could be a prolonged battle over raising the U.S. debt ceiling later this year.
The U.S. Treasury is expected to reach its mandated $31.4 trillion borrowing limit in 2023, and Republicans see that as an opportunity to curb President Joe Biden's spending on Democratic initiatives such as climate change and new social programs.
While fights over raising the debt limit are nothing new in Washington, some investors worry the Republican party's narrow majority in Congress could give the party’s hard-liners the upper hand, making it much harder to reach a deal this time around.

13/01/2023

Ryanair is closing its Brussels Zaventem base because of the airport's decision to increase prices from April, it said on Wednesday.
Europe's largest budget airline said the airport's decision comes at a time when most European airports are reducing prices to recover traffic lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Despite recent rumours, we will not be reopening our Brussels Zaventem base in summer 2023 due to Zaventem Airport's decision to increase prices by 11% for airlines and passengers from April 2023," Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said in a statement.

13/01/2023

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The European Central Bank must still raise interest rates "significantly" over its coming meetings to restrict growth and dampen inflation, which has been far too high, Finnish central bank chief Olli Rehn said on Wednesday.
The ECB has raised rates by a combined 2.5 percentage points since July and promised "a steady pace" of hikes over the coming months but some policymakers have started to argue that a peak in interest rates may be near given a looming recession.
"Policy rates will still have to rise significantly," Rehn, who sits on the ECB's rate-setting Governing Council, told a webinar with the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "This means significant rate hikes at this winter's remaining meetings."

12/01/2023

PARIS (Reuters) - Interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank will need to come at a "pragmatic pace" in the coming months, French ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau said on Wednesday.
After raising interest rates by 2.5 percentage points in five months, they had reached a level where they neither fuel inflation nor restrict it, said Villeroy, who is also the head of the French central bank.
"In 2023, new interest rate hikes will very likely be needed in the coming months at a pragmatic pace in order to bring inflation towards 2%," Villeroy told the French Senate's finance committee.

12/01/2023

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's industrial output is expected to have grown 3.6% in 2022 from the previous year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Wednesday, despite production and logistics disruptions from COVID-19 curbs.
The output of the manufacturing sector is estimated to have risen 3.1% last year, accounting for 28% of China's gross domestic product, according to the MIIT statement following a meeting held on Wednesday.
After stringent COVID lockdowns and curbs disrupted production lines and supply chains last year, the ministry pledged stable growth of the industrial economy in 2023.

11/01/2023

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Anshuman Daga

Asian equity markets are flirting with six-month highs, powered by risk-on sentiment and hopes of a rebound in Chinese growth but inflation worries are looming ahead.

European company results kick-off in earnest on Wednesday, with retailer Sainsbury and JD Sports reporting.

Earnings from Britain's biggest retailers are expected to confirm that while Christmas was not the disaster that some had feared, consumer demand is set to weaken in 2023, denting profit.

11/01/2023

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The dollar mostly held its ground on Wednesday in spite of downward pressure from lower bond yields and higher stocks, as traders waited on this week's U.S. consumer price data to see whether it will confirm that inflation is in retreat.

The Australian dollar wobbled its way about 0.4%higher to $0.6918 after data showed the annual pace of inflation increased to 7.3% in November, leaving room for more rate hikes. The New Zealand dollar also crept up 0.1% to $0.6378. [AUD/]

The U.S. dollar was steady elsewhere, loitering at $1.0743 per euro, just above a five-month low, in the lead-up to U.S. inflation data due on Thursday.

10/01/2023

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's labour market cooled further in December, according to a survey of recruiters published on Tuesday that may ease some of the Bank of England's concerns about the risks of longer-term inflation pressure.

The monthly index of vacancies, compiled by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation trade body and accountants KPMG, fell last month to 53.0, its lowest since February 2021 and down from 54.1 in November.

The survey, watched closely by the BoE, also showed an easing in wage pressures.

10/01/2023

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Tuesday, commodities shed recent gains from China's reopening, and oil traded lower following hawkish comments from two U.S. Federal Reserve officials overnight, with investors turning cautious ahead of key inflation data.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.17%.

"The main theme overnight was cautiousness in the equity space as stocks pared gains after hawkish comments from two Fed officials. Raphael Bostic and Mary Daly said the Fed would likely hike (interest) rates to above 5% and hold them there for some time

09/01/2023

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) -California on Sunday braced for more severe weather after a week of torrential downpours and damaging winds killed at least 12 people in the past 10 days and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service warned that northern and central California were still in the path of a "relentless parade of cyclones," promising little relief for the region until the middle of the week.
Two overlapping phenomena - an immense airborne stream of dense moisture from the ocean called an atmospheric river and a sprawling, hurricane-force low-pressure system known as a bomb cyclone - have caused devastating flooding and record snowfall over the past week.

09/01/2023

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's central bank will step up support for private firms as part of steps to shore up the economy, while easing a crackdown on tech companies, Guo Shuqing, Communist party chief of the People's Bank of China, was quoted by state media as saying.
Monetary policy in 2023 will focus on expanding demand, especially personal consumption, Guo told state-owned CCTV on Sunday, reaffirming earlier official remarks.
Chinese leaders have pledged to increase support for the world's second-largest economy, which was hit hard by COVID-19 lockdowns last year as well as slowing global demand. After tough virus curbs were reversed in December, the country is now battling a surge of infections.

09/01/2023

ZURICH(Reuters) - The Swiss National Bank posted an annual loss of 132 billion Swiss francs ($142.67 billion) in 2022, it said on Monday, the biggest loss in its 115-year history.
The central bank plunged into the red as falling stock and fixed-income markets hit the value of its share and bond portfolio, while the appreciation of the Swiss franc also had a negative impact.
Monday's figure, which marked a reverse from a 26 billion franc profit in 2021, was bigger than the previously biggest loss of 23 billion francs chalked up in 2015. It is equivalent to slightly more than the annual GDP of Morocco.

09/01/2023

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's finance minister on Monday told the nation's top bankers to be wary of risks to their balance sheets this year due to numerous global risks, including potential debt crises in some countries.
In a seminar with bankers, Sri Mulyani Indrawati said risks in 2023 included high inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical tension and the International Monetary Fund's outlook for slowing global growth.
"The ups and downs, whether our economy is healthy or not really depend on the banking sector today, in 2023," Sri Mulyani said.