Sri Lanka gained extensive support from private creditors to restructure its international bonds, a key step for the country to exit an extended default, Bloomberg News reported. Investors representing close to 98% of the country’s $12.6 billion in dollar bonds are expected to agree to swap their securities for new notes, the government said, citing preliminary results of its consent solicitation for the exchange. Once confirmed with official results on Dec. 16, the widespread support would mean that the debt restructuring should be completed before year-end.
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Chinese leaders met this week to plot economic policy for the coming year, sketching out plans to raise government spending and relax Beijing’s monetary policy to encourage more investment and consumer spending, the Associated Press reported. Leaders of the ruling Communist Party wrapped up their two-day Central Economic Work Conference on Thursday with praise for President Xi Jinping's guidance and a pledge to “enrich and refine the policy toolbox” and defuse risks facing the world's second-largest economy.
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Indonesia said it intervened aggressively in the market to curb the rupiah’s decline as the currency weakened past the key psychological level of 16,000 against the dollar, Bloomberg News reported. “We entered the market with a quite bold triple intervention,” Edi Susianto, executive director for monetary and asset securities management at Bank Indonesia said in text message Friday. Authorities entered the spot, domestic non-deliverable forward and government bond markets to maintain market confidence, he said. The rupiah dropped 0.5% to 16,002 per dollar on Friday.
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China’s top leaders on Thursday pledged more stimulus measures to shore up the country’s economy, building on steps they have taken in recent months to bolster growth, the New York Times reported. At an annual gathering of the Chinese Communist Party and the cabinet, led by the country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, officials agreed that the government should allow a bigger budget deficit, borrow more and cut interest rates, the state television broadcaster said on Thursday.
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China is poised to roll out an expansion of its nationwide private pension system as the world’s second-largest economy faces a rapidly aging population and its public pension fund is running dry, the Wall Street Journal reported. Workers covered by the nation’s basic pension insurance system can voluntarily open private pension accounts and deposit up to 12,000 yuan, equivalent to about $1,650, a year into the accounts, five governing bodies, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said in a joint statement yesterday.
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China's top leaders and policymakers are considering allowing the yuan to weaken in 2025 as they brace for higher U.S. trade tariffs as Donald Trump returns to the White House, Reuters reported. The contemplated move reflects China's recognition that it needs bigger economic stimulus to combat Trump's threats of punitive trade measures. Trump has said that he plans to impose a 10% universal import tariff, and a 60% tariff on Chinese imports into the United States.
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The Reserve Bank of Australia is preparing to deal with the fallout resulting from a major international trade war in the coming years, but the central bank’s deputy governor, Andrew Hauser, said it’s best to avoid prejudging the consequences for Australia, the Wall Street Journal reported. The impact that higher tariffs around the world will have on Australia’s inflation is “ambiguous,” in large part because it depends on a far wider set of considerations than the imposition of U.S. trade restrictions alone, Hauser told a meeting of economists on Wednesday.
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