PARIS Economic conditions are stabilizing in China and the outlook is for steady growth in the euro zone, while the U.S. and UK economies are losing steam, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Monday. The Paris-based OECD said tha... More »
SHANGHAI China will face great difficulty in achieving economic growth above 6.5 percent over the 2016-2020 period due to slowing global demand and rising labor costs at home, the China Securities Journal quotes a top state adviser as saying. Li Wei, president... More »
BERLIN Economic sentiment in the euro zone deteriorated more than expected in January as an economic slowdown in China and its impact on the world economy unsettled investors, survey data released on Monday showed. The Frankfurt-based Sentix research group’s i... More »
HARARE A scorching drought in Southern Africa that led to widespread crop failure could nudge African nations to finally embrace genetically modified (GM) crops to improve harvests and reduce grain imports. The drought, which extends to South Africa, the conti... More »
BENGALURU/NEW YORK The global economy finished last year on a fragile footing, with factory activity in China shrinking for the 10th month running in December, while euro zone manufacturing picked up but U.S. activity slowed. Coming on a day of volatility in A... More »
BAGHDAD Iraq’s central bank has increased the sale price of U.S. dollars to banks and currency exchange companies by 16 dinars, or 1.37 percent, as the government seeks to compensate a decline in oil revenue, a government official and the central bank said. Th... More »
FRANKFURT The European Central Bank will keep monetary policy easy for as long as necessary in light of risks such as slower growth in emerging economies, its chief economist said in an interview with a Belgian newspaper. The ECB cut its deposit rate earlier t... More »
BRASILIA Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s key ally in Congress is certain it can head off an impeachment threat, but in return the party demands a radical change of policy course to pull the economy out of its deepest downturn in 25 years. Senator Eunicio ... More »
LONDON One of the Bank of England’s policymakers who is considered most likely to call for higher interest rates believes the need for tighter monetary policy is “slightly less immediate” because of slow pay growth and falling oil prices, a newspaper reported.... More »
ATHENS Greece faces relatively low debt servicing needs in the coming years and further debt relief is not a matter of urgency, Greek financial daily Naftemporiki quoted European Central Bank Governing Council member Jens Weidmann as saying on Thursday. “In 20... More »
BEIJING The International Monetary Fund’s decision on Ukraine’s debt to Russia did not change anything to Moscow, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told reporters in Beijing on Thursday. The International Monetary Fund’s Executive Board decided t... More »
JAKARTA Asia policymakers on Thursday applauded an historic turn in U.S. monetary policy, but analysts cautioned that the region’s economies faced vulnerabilities even as markets took the Federal Reserve rate hike in their stride. The prospect of the first hik... More »
SAN FRANCISCOThe world’s central banks are scrambling to assess the risk a slowing China poses to their economies and appear to be no closer than most other observers to working out what is going on in the world’s second largest economy. While the Reserve Bank... More »
NEW YORK Jeffrey Gundlach, the widely followed investor who runs DoubleLine Capital, said the U.S. economy faces a 30 percent chance of recession next year after the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate increase in nearly a decade on Wednesday. “Commodity pri... More »
BERLIN The leader of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) accused Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday of fuelling support for France’s far-right National Front by insisting on tighter budgets during the euro zone crisis. Sigmar Gabriel, struggling to impose his lea... More »
TOKYO Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Monday he saw no need to implement negative deposit rates in Japan as borrowing costs were already very low due to the central bank’s aggressive asset purchases. The European Central Bank has adopted negativ... More »
SYDNEY Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday unveiled a A$1.1 billion ($806 million) package to boost innovation in Australia, using his first major economic policy statement since becoming leader to map out a pathway beyond the country’s fading resources ... More »
TOKYO Bank of Japan board member Takehiro Sato said on Monday the impact of its quantitative easing is likely diminishing, as long-term interest rates have not declined much since the central bank increased debt purchases in October 2014. Sato said the BOJ can... More »
FRANKFURT Hints by Mario Draghi ahead of last Thursday’s ECB rate meeting that the euro zone may need another big injection of money backfired, stiffening the resolve of more conservative central bankers who criticized him for raising expectations too high, so... More »
WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve Board on Friday named the chairs and deputy chairs of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks for 2016. The Fed’s Washington-based board appoints three of the nine directors at each of the regional banks and selects the chair and d... More »
LONDON A perceived lack of ambition in the European Central Bank’s latest stimulus efforts left financial markets with a niggling worry on Thursday that even ‘Super Mario’ Draghi might not be able to drag euro zone inflation back up to target. A bare minimum 0... More »
FRANKFURT The European Central Bank looks set to continue to support the economy as the euro zone’s upswing broadens and strengthens, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Thursday. “The ECB has been accommodative … supportive for the economic recovery a... More »
PARIS France’s far-right National Front is set to score huge gains in regional elections on Sunday, redrawing the political landscape of the euro zone’s second-biggest economy as it gears up for the next presidential election in 2017. The anti-immigration, ant... More »
FRANKFURT European Central Bank President Mario Draghi called on Thursday for euro zone member states to do more to improve the economy. Saying that the ECB’s easy monetary policy has been “a success”, Draghi said there nonetheless needed to be more. “Actions ... More »
LONDON The U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank are expected to deliver sharply contrasting policy decisions next month, reflecting how the world’s two largest economies have moved from the Great Recession to the Great Divide. The U.S. and euro zone ... More »
PARIS U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping pledged on Monday to work together to drive forward a climate change agreement at international talks in Paris. Ahead of a bilateral meeting with Xi, Obama said the leadership of the two coun... More »
TOKYO/SYDNEY The dollar edged up to a fresh 8-1/2-month high against a basket of global currencies on Monday, while the prospect of further stimulus this week by the European Central Bank kept the euro on the defensive. The dollar index added about 0.1 percent... More »
SHANGHAI/NEW YORK When the International Monetary Fund agrees on Monday to add the Chinese yuan to its reserves basket in the biggest shake-up in more than three decades, the IMF can afford itself a congratulatory nod. By acknowledging the yuan as a major glob... More »
NAGOYA, Japan Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda warned on Monday that a slowdown in emerging economies, if prolonged, may hurt Japanese business confidence and discourage firms from increasing capital expenditure. “The BOJ will respond without hesitation ... More »
SAO PAULO The reliance of Brazil’s Grupo BTG Pactual SA on market funding may pose an immediate challenge for new boss Persio Arida, who sought to calm clients on Friday after its shares fell for a third straight day. The São Paulo-based investment bank tapped... More »
BUENOS AIRES Conservative challenger Mauricio Macri turned Argentine politics on its head on Sunday, kicking the ruling Peronist movement out of power with a promise to liberalize the ailing economy and end a culture of divisive politics. Macri, the son of an ... More »
BUENOS AIRES By the end of President-elect Mauricio Macri’s first four-year term, Argentina will have doubled wheat shipments and surpassed Russia and Brazil as a corn exporter, by some estimates, as the abandonment of years-long trade restraints unleashes the... More »
TOKYO Japan’s government plans to raise the minimum wage and introduce other steps to revitalise the economy, but the draft of stimulus measures seen by Reuters on Monday appeared to break no new ground on reforms that analysts say are needed to end decades of... More »
ZURICH The Swiss National Bank should make more efforts to protect Switzerland’s economy from the impact of an overvalued franc, economists told several Swiss newspapers. The SNB abandoned its cap on the franc in January and is instead using negative interest ... More »
BERKELEY, Calif. U.S. central bankers not only regularly leak secret information about monetary policy, but the leaks are so predictably timed that a savvy investor without access to the leaked information could make money just by buying stocks in certain week... More »
FRANKFURT The European Central Bank is ready to act quickly to boost anemic inflation in the euro zone, its president said on Friday, offering the strongest hint yet that the bank will unveil fresh stimulus measures at its Dec. 3 meeting. Mario Draghi highligh... More »
LONDON U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs tipped a higher dollar as its top trade for 2016 on Thursday, heading a list that also bet on rising U.S. inflation and long-dated Italian bonds outperforming German bonds. Goldman said big U.S. banks will outperform t... More »
TOKYO Japan slipped into its fourth technical recession in five years between July and September – spotlighting how the government’s “Abenomics” policies have struggled to drag the economy out of chronic stagnation. Official data on Monday showed the world’s t... More »
LONDON The euro hit a 6 1/2-month low against the yen and was pinned down near 7-month troughs against the dollar on Monday after the deadly attacks in Paris led to a bout of global risk aversion and kept investors cautious on the common currency. The Swiss fr... More »
TOKYO Japanese Economics Minister Akira Amari said on Monday that the economy was in a moderate recovery trend albeit some weakness and that it would continue to improve gradually even though overseas economies posed downside risks. Amari made the remarks afte... More »
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has urged Japan to offer fiscal support to its economy to ensure it returns to growth driven by domestic demand. Lew made the remark in a bilateral meeting with Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso on the sidelines of a Group of ... More »
TOKYO Japan has expressed concern to China about the pace of capital outflows from the country and has suggested Beijing moves very slowly in reforming its currency system to avoid repeating Japan’s past mistakes. After a summer of market turmoil, China now ap... More »
BEIJING China’s President Xi Jinping said the country is able to maintain a medium to high economic growth rate and expects China’s economy to grow at around 7 pct this year. Xi’s remarks at the G20 Summit in Turkey on Sunday were published on the foreign mini... More »
BRUSSELS Greece and its euro zone creditors have reached a deal on many, but not all, issues in the program that Athens is implementing in return for loans, the head of euro zone finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Sunday. Greece needs the euro zone ... More »
BOGOTA Colombia said on Friday it plans to legalize medical marijuana in a further shift in drug policy after suspending aerial fumigation of illicit crops. The government is preparing a decree which would approve the therapeutic use of marijuana, the presiden... More »
LISBON Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, whose government faces a vote that may topple it in the opposition-dominated parliament, warned on Monday that leaving the path of reforms and meeting euro zone commitments would be ruinous for Portugal. “The choice w... More »
LONDONBritain’s security agencies will receive a significant boost to staff numbers as part of a multi-pronged effort to stave off threats from terrorist plotters, finance minister George Osborne said on Monday. “I can confirm that over the next five years we ... More »
BEIJINGChina must strengthen its reforms and modernize its system of governance over the next five years, President Xi Jinping told a meeting of a key Communist Party body on Monday, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The government will push forward re... More »
WARSAWPolish election winner, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, plans to present the composition of the new cabinet at about 1230 GMT (0730 ET), the party’s spokeswoman Elzbieta Witek said on Monday. The party called earlier on Monday a news confer... More »
LONDONGlobal regulators set out their “final tools” on Monday for ending the phenomenon of “too big to fail” banks, seeking to draw a line under a period of intensive rule making after a financial crisis that tarnished the sector and weighed heavily on taxpaye... More »
LONDONBritish finance minister George Osborne will spell out on Monday the first set of spending cuts to be imposed on government departments as part of an overall 37 billion-pound ($56 billion) austerity plan to turn Britain’s deficit into a surplus by 2020. ... More »
NEW YORKDoubleLine Capital co-founder Jeffrey Gundlach, widely followed for his investment calls, warned on Thursday that the U.S. Federal Reserve should not raise rates in December as economic and financial conditions have become vulnerable. Gundlach said the... More »
LONDONEuro zone private business growth remained tepid last month but activity in China’s services industry expanded at its fastest pace in three months, easing concerns about persistent weakness in its economy, surveys showed on Wednesday. There was little si... More »
BEIJING China’s factory activity fell for an eighth straight month in October but at a slower pace as export orders flickered into life, a private survey showed on Monday, pointing to continued sluggishness in the world’s second-largest economy. The Caixin/Mar... More »
BRUSSELS The European Commission, which polices euro zone governments’ finances, will give more budget leeway to states that can prove to have suffered extraordinary costs to face the refugee crisis, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Tuesday. “W... More »
TOKYO Japan’s Ministry of Finance on Monday called for cuts in the country’s budget spending for U.S. forces stationed in Japan in a bid to restore public finances, a move likely to meet opposition from its key ally Washington. The move comes after passage of ... More »
TOKYO The Bank of Japan need not boost its massive monetary stimulus this week as the labor market remains tight, a key economic adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday. Koichi Hamada, an emeritus professor of economics at Yale University, also tol... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, praised as an adept listener and consensus builder, may need to adopt a stronger tone at this week’s policy meeting if she expects to keep a December interest rate rise in play. Yellen’s inclusive style has bee... More »
TOKYO The dollar dipped on Monday as the currency took a breather after scaling a 2-1/2-month high versus a basket of peers, although an improvement in risk appetite after China’s monetary easing limited the losses. Stock markets gained worldwide after China o... More »
BEIJING/SHANGHAI China’s ruling Communist Party opened a key meeting on Monday that will focus on financial reforms and how to maintain growth of around seven percent and more broadly map out economic and social targets for the next five years. The Central Com... More »
BEIJING Liberalizing China’s interest rates is a key element of financial reform, the country’s central bank said on Monday, adding that cutting borrowing costs and lowering the amount of cash banks must keep as reserves do not equate to quantitative easing. T... More »
TOKYO Japan’s economy is expected to have slowed sharply in the third quarter as demand across Asia ebbed, keeping the Bank of Japan and policymakers under pressure to inject more stimulus to revitalize growth, a Reuters poll found. The poll of 21 economists p... More »
WARSAW The euro zone needs additional measures, possibly looser fiscal policy, to secure economic growth, European Central Bank policymaker Ewald Nowotny said in an interview published on Monday. “This applies to structural reforms and fiscal policy,” he said ... More »
BEIJING China’s economy will maintain stable growth in the future, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday, after growth eased to the slowest since the global financial crisis. China’s exports face increased downward pressure and the g... More »
BEIJING China’s economic growth eased to 6.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, beating expectations but still the slowest since the global financial crisis, putting pressure on policymakers to roll out more support measures as fears of a sharpe... More »
TOKYO The Bank of Japan maintained its upbeat assessment for all nine of the country’s regional economies despite looming external risks such as China’s slowdown, suggesting that it saw no immediate need to expand monetary stimulus further. In a quarterly repo... More »
TOKYO Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Monday the country’s economy was expected to continue recovering moderately even though the slowdown in emerging markets was weighing on exports and output. “The BOJ’s quantitative and qualitative easing is ... More »
FRANKFURT U.S. rate hikes could have greater global repercussions than in the past and affect the euro zone more in some respects than the domestic market, European Central Bank Vice President Vitor Constancio said on Thursday. A Federal Reserve rate rise woul... More »
SHANGHAI Now is not the right time for the United States to raise interest rates, given the global economic situation, China’s Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said in an interview published in the China Business News on Monday. Speaking on the sidelines of the annu... More »
LIMA, Peru A senior International Monetary Fund official has urged Japan to go ahead with a sales tax hike scheduled for April 2017 to maintain its long-term fiscal credibility. Mitsuhiro Furusawa, the IMF’s deputy managing director, warned on Sunday that flex... More »
BOSTON Eric Rosengren still expects the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year despite what the head of the Boston Fed called a “weak” September jobs report, which could signal a more significant economic slowdown that delays the policy tightening. ... More »
SEOUL South Korea’s central bank chief said on Monday economic growth this year will be near the 2.8 percent level the bank had forecast in July. The central bank will revise its forecasts later this month. “Domestic consumption is considered to be in recovery... More »
ATHENS Greece will unveil a painful 2016 draft budget on Monday meant to satisfy international creditors, projecting the economy will stay in recession next year before returning to growth in 2017, in line with the estimates by the country’s lenders. After sev... More »
WASHINGTON Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that more corporate executives should have been prosecuted for their actions leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. Bernanke told USA Today that the U.S... More »
OTTAWA One of the world’s most famous central bank chiefs, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, briefly became the late American actor Art Carney during a Canadian election debate on Friday. Gilles Duceppe, leader of the separatist Bloc Quebecois party, refer... More »
The U.S. jobs data were a bust, China remains a threat, the Fed won’t hike until, well, don’t ask, and bad news is good news for the stock market once again. Stocks plunged and then rallied back to gains on Friday after payrolls data showed not just declining ... More »
BRUSSELS Greece is likely to qualify for recapitalization funds for its banks by a Nov. 15 deadline because the payment depends mainly on financial sector reforms that it can implement by then, euro zone officials said on Friday. The euro zone bailout fund has... More »
OSAKA, Japan Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda dismissed concern an expected U.S. interest rate hike could jolt global markets, saying that emerging nations are now less concerned that tighter U.S. policy will trigger an exodus of funds from their economi... More »
MUMBAI The Reserve Bank of India is expected cut its key repo rate to a four-year low on Tuesday to help support the domestic economy at a time when consumer inflation is at a record low, but may express caution about easing further as price risks still loom. ... More »
LONDON Euro zone inflation and U.S. jobs data will offer clues to the health of major developed economies in the coming week while the malaise gripping emerging markets is expected to prompt India to cut interest rates. China may release monthly foreign exchan... More »
BEIJING British finance minister George Osborne said on Monday Britain would like to continue helping the gradual internationalization of the yuan and that it welcomed the potential for majority Chinese investment in future nuclear projects. Speaking at the st... More »
BERLIN The head of the European Parliament said on Monday that he expects European Union interior ministers to agree on a voluntary scheme to relocate 160,000 migrants at their meeting on Tuesday. “There will be some discussions, but at the end there will be a... More »
BEIJING Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to press ahead with mergers and acquisitions to improve their competitiveness and for the disposal of “zombie” enterprises, the official Xinhua news agency said late on Sunday. St... More »
PARIS Business confidence data from China and the euro zone will offer some pointers this week to where the global economy is going after the U.S. Federal Reserve kept markets guessing about when it will begin raising rates. With a Chinese slowdown blamed for ... More »
NEW YORK Mohamed El-Erian, the chief economic adviser at Allianz SE, said Thursday that the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold off on a rate hike reflects policymakers’ reluctance to add to international financial fragility. The Fed kept interest rates unchang... More »
NEW YORK Jeffrey Gundlach, the widely followed investor who oversees DoubleLine Capital, said on Thursday the biggest surprise from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to keep rates unchanged was policymakers’ focus on recent global economic and financial deve... More »
MOSCOW/WARSAW Russia summoned Poland’s ambassador on Thursday to protest at the removal of a Soviet-era statue in a Polish town on the 76th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, highlighting increased tensions between the neighbors. Katarzyna Pelczynsk... More »
LONDON A year after Mario Draghi said European Central Bank interest rates had reached bottom, euro zone money markets are discounting a fair chance they could be lowered again – regardless of rising interest rates across the Atlantic. The low bank-to-bank len... More »
SYDNEY/SINGAPORE The dollar inched lower on Monday with investors sticking to the sidelines as the countdown begins on whether the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. The euro edged up 0.1 percent to $1.1350 EUR=, ho... More »
PARIS France is on the right path with reforms the Socialist government has undertaken but needs to go farther, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said on Sunday. Lagarde, who was finance minister in the government of conservative former presi... More »
LONDON Concerns over the world’s major emerging economies, and in particular China, are growing as financial investors reassess the outlook for global growth, the Bank of International Settlements said on Sunday. After a month of turmoil for stocks and commodi... More »
FRANKFURT The U.S. Federal Reserve takes center stage in the coming week, eclipsing industry data from China, another grim inflation reading from the euro zone and rate decisions in Japan and Switzerland. Guessing whether the Fed hikes rates on Thursday or opt... More »
We may well not get a global recession in the coming year or two but if we do, bank on one thing: an inadequate policy response. Citibank Chief Economist Willem Buiter attracted attention this week with a call for a 55 percent chance of a global recession some... More »
FRANKFURT Economic growth in the euro zone is still too weak to create a sufficient number of jobs, European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure told a French newspaper group EBRA on Friday. “Growth is still not strong enough to create a sufficie... More »
BRUSSELS International creditors expect the first review of Greek reforms under the latest bailout to start in October, bringing changes to a memorandum of understanding signed with Athens and paving the way for debt rescheduling talks, euro zone officials sai... More »
BERLIN German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that the euro zone economy was in better shape than a year ago and said reform efforts by countries like Spain and Ireland had paid off. “If we look at the euro zone as a whole, we can say that there is ... More »
SHANGHAI China’s policymakers and regulators tried to soothe the country’s jittery markets on Monday, promising deeper financial market reforms and stressing the economy was showing signs of stabilizing, as stocks resumed trading after a four-day long weekend.... More »
TOKYO Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looks set to win a rare second consecutive term but economists predict he won’t use that victory to push through bold reforms such as labor market changes that are considered vital for long-term growth. Instead, Abe, wh... More »
BEIJING China has revised its annual economic growth rate in 2014 to 7.3 percent from the previously released figure of 7.4 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. Gross domestic product stood at 63.6 trillion yuan ($10.00 trillion) last yea... More »
CERNOBBIO, Italy A common euro zone budget should initially be funded through joint debt issuance and taxpayers’ money should only be used at a later stage, French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday. France wants the euro zone to have its own jo... More »
