Politicians in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government on Sunday signalled further support for struggling businesses and consumers in the coronavirus crisis, focusing on hotels, restaurants and pay for short-time workers, Reuters reported. Dehoga, an industry association that includes a large share of often small family-owned operations, told Bild am Sonntag that some 70,000 restaurant and hotel operators, which employ 223,000 people, could face insolvency as they stood to lose up to 10 billion euros of sales by the end of April.

The president of the European Central Bank has said it is “extremely difficult” to know how long the eurozone will be stuck in recession or how deep the downturn will be, as fresh data exposed the sudden loss of business confidence and dynamism in the bloc’s economy, the Financial Times reported. Christine Lagarde said in a statement to the IMF’s virtual meeting on Thursday that the eurozone was heading for “a large contraction in output” and “rapidly deteriorating labour markets” because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Emerging markets fund manager Ashmore lost more than a fifth of its assets in the first quarter as the coronavirus crisis sent stocks and bonds in the developing world into free fall, the Financial Times reported. London-based Ashmore said its assets under management reached $76.8bn at the end of March, down from $98.4bn at the end of 2019. In a trading update on Thursday, it said that the falling value of its investments accounted for $18bn of the loss, while investors withdrew another $3.6bn from Ashmore’s funds.

Sweden is witnessing a jump in bankruptcies this month with the rate among hotels and restaurants set to triple to 3.6 from 1.2 per day a year ago, and 3.1 retailers per day going under versus 1.8 per day a year earlier, credit information firm UC said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The rate of bankruptcies in the hotel and restaurant segmentwill probably accelerate further, UC said. UC on April 1 said bankruptcies in the restaurant and hotel sector shot up 123% in March, with the transport sector also seeing a big jump, up 105%.

Supermarket chain Tesco is among those that have expressed an interest in Carluccio’s sites and other assets after the Italian chain collapsed into administration last month, the Financial Times reported. FRP Advisory, the insolvency specialist running the sale process, has received offers for Carluccio’s locations from Tesco, Boparan Holdings, the company behind the Giraffe and Ed’s Easy Diner chains, and Three Hills Capital, owner of the burger brand Byron, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations.

More than 15,000 U.K. companies fell into “significant distress” in the first three months of 2020 as the virus shutdown took its toll on the economy, according to a quarterly survey published on Friday by insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor, Bloomberg News reported. That’s the highest tally ever recorded by the survey and the largest quarterly increase since the end of 2017, bringing the total number of British companies falling behind on debts of up to 5,000 pounds ($6,220) to more than half a million.

Swedish fashion retailer MQ will file for bankruptcy on Thursday, the company said, citing plunging sales because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. MQ had already been struggling in the face of a rapid transformation of the retail sector and last month filed for bankruptcy for the smaller of its two brands, Joy, and announced measures to minimise the impact on the group from the coronavirus crisis.

Dozens of UK retailers and restaurant chains are in talks to take advantage of an experimental “light touch” administration that is intended to protect companies from creditors during the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. Department store chain Debenhams, which has 142 stores and more than £1bn of annual sales, last week became the first high-street business to enter into such a process.

France expects Group of 20 nations will agree to a debt moratorium for African nations in a conference call later Wednesday, an official at the Elysee Palace said. President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing for debt relief to support African nations caught up in the Covid-19 pandemic and on Monday called for a massive cancellation of the continent’s sovereign debt, Bloomberg News reported. A moratorium would allow African countries “to take a breath and not pay interest,” Macron told Radio France Internationale in an interview released Wednesday.

British fashion brands Oasis and Warehouse have fallen into administration, threatening over 2,000 jobs and joining a growing list of store groups pushed over the edge by the coronavirus crisis, Reuters reported. Deloitte, appointed as administrator to the Oasis Warehouse group owned by Icelandic bank Kaupthing on Wednesday, said that 202 of the retailers’ employees would be made redundant, 1,801 furloughed and 41 head office staff retained. The brands trade from 92 branches across the Oasis Warehouse group’s leasehold stores, with 437 concessions located in third party retailers.