Headlines

Peru’s Finance Minister Pedro Francke was given assurances from the new government that he’ll be able to implement his economic program, he said in the first interview since securing his new role, Bloomberg News reported. Francke, a former World Bank economist, was sworn in late Friday, a day when markets crashed amid investor concern that he wouldn’t take the post due to differences with other members of the cabinet appointed by President Pedro Castillo. These included Guido Bellido, a lawmaker who considers the communist government of Cuba to be a democracy, as prime minister.

Asia is emerging as a weak link in an otherwise strong global economic recovery, as new pandemic restrictions restrain manufacturing in some countries and the exports that have powered the recovery in China show signs of slowing, the Wall Street Journal reported. With progress on vaccinations slower than in the West, Asia is hitting new pandemic highs driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus. The spread of the virus is threatening to hurt consumer confidence and erode the advantage of many Asian economies as manufacturing powerhouses.

South Korea has recouped 69.7 percent of the public funds it spent to bail out troubled financial firms since the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the financial regulator said Monday, the Yonhap News Agency reported. The country retrieved 327.9 billion won (US$284.3 million) in the second quarter out of the 168.7 trillion won in state funds spent to save firms from bankruptcy, according to the Financial Services Commission (FSC). The recovery rate was up from 69.5 percent recorded at the end of March, it added.

Dielmar, a clothing company based in Alcains, in Portugal’s Castelo Branco district, with about 300 employees, has filed for insolvency after 56 years of the business, in a move that its board said was made necessary by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, Macau Business reported. In a statement, the board states that “after having overcome several crises over 56 years” the company succumbed to the pandemic, as a result of “a set of situations that were lethal” for its business.

Britain opened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers from the U.S. and the European Union on Monday as travel industry leaders urged the government to further ease restrictions and allow people to enjoy the benefits of a successful COVID-19 inoculation program, the Associated Press reported. The new rules came into effect amid reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government may add a new category to Britain’s traffic light system of travel restrictions, a move industry officials say would make many people decide to stay home.

Japan will act "without hesitation" to cushion the economic blow from the COVID-19 pandemic, economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said on Friday, signaling the government's readiness to compile another spending package as the crisis weighs on growth, Reuters reported. Japan decided on Friday to expand states of emergency to three prefectures near Olympic host Tokyo and the western prefecture of Osaka, as COVID-19 cases spike, a move that will delay an already fragile economic recovery.

In a ruling that will help infrastructure and construction companies, the Delhi High Court said forcing a minimum claim period of 12 months for bank guarantees is wrongful, rejecting interpretations that existing laws rendered shorter claim periods void, the Economic Times of India reported.

Kenya has resumed servicing loans owed to China after Beijing’s six-month debt-repayment suspension expired in June, piling pressure on the exchequer, Bloomberg News reported. The government began 2021-22 remittances, with the first batch to the Export–Import Bank of China amounting to 82.7 billion shillings ($761 million), according to Kenya’s Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o. Repayments are for debt taken for projects, including a railroad between Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and the port city of Mombasa, Nyakang’o said in emailed responses to questions.

Australia’s Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman is calling on the federal government to ‘reactivate’ temporary insolvency protections that will help cushion small and family businesses during public health ordered lockdowns, SmartCompany reported. The number of businesses going into administration increased by 75% in the last week of June 2021, according to new data released by CreditorWatch.