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Chinese economic activity surged in the first two months of 2021 when compared with the same coronavirus-battered period last year, though the picture was less rosy when weighed against growth momentum in the final months of 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported. Economic data released Monday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed industrial production, consumption, investment and home sales in January and February all jumping by more than 30% from the same period a year earlier, when the Chinese economy was largely shut down to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus.
Brazil spent more money shielding its economy from the pandemic slump than almost any other emerging nation, and quite a few wealthier ones too. It put much less effort into containing the pandemic itself, Bloomberg News reported. That combination is putting the country’s economic policy under growing strain. It’s one reason why Brazil is poised to become the first Group of 20 country to raise interest rates this year.
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A German court on Tuesday declared that a small bank tied to a collapsed U.K. finance company was insolvent, triggering losses for dozens of small German towns, the Wall Street Journal reported. Greensill Bank AG was deemed insolvent by a local court, leaving the towns as creditors that will likely sustain losses. Around Germany, at least 12 towns with a combined €200 million, equivalent to about $238 million, in deposits are in the same situation. Individual depositors are covered by insurance. Among them is Mengen, a tiny municipality in southwestern Germany.
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The European Central Bank is shielding the euro-zone economy from higher bond yields partly because the region is rolling out its fiscal stimulus too slowly, according to policy maker Peter Kazimir, Bloomberg News reported. While the rise in euro-area government bond yields this year isn’t “dramatic for now,” the Slovakian central bank governor said the ECB wanted to shore up confidence that the region wouldn’t suffer from higher borrowing costs sparked by the $1.9 trillion U.S. fiscal package. “My concern is that, compared with the enormous U.S.
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Poland’s increasingly rickety right-wing governing coalition has split over the €672.5 billion COVID Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) — potentially endangering a project that has to be approved by all 27 EU countries before going into effect, Politico reported. The RFF is part of the EU’s €750 billion Next Generation EU package, aimed at pulling the bloc out of the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, as well as boosting key priorities like the green energy transformation. The ruling United Right coalition is dominated by Law and Justice (PiS) with two smaller parties.
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Canada’s Just Energy said on Tuesday it had applied to voluntarily delist its shares from the Toronto Stock Exchange after the electricity and gas provider filed for bankruptcy last week, Reuters reported. On March 9, the company filed for creditor protection in Canada and said it planned to do the same in the United States due to massive costs from the Texas deep freeze. It became the second Texas electricity company to take that step in the face of extraordinary electricity charges during the cold snap.
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France amassed its biggest-ever green bond orderbook in its second sale of new debt, extending a pole position in the market to finance environmental projects, Bloomberg News reported. The nation raised 7 billion euros ($8.3 billion) from the securities maturing in 2044. Investors bid over 34.5 billion euros, about 50% more than for its first such offering in 2017, reflecting the surge in appetite for assets aimed at mitigating climate change. That still lagged the records set in Italy’s recent debut deal.
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Anil Agarwal, the billionaire founder of the Vedanta commodities empire, is offering a higher price to repurchase shares of his cash-rich Indian unit that’s key to his debt-repayment plans, Bloomberg News reported. London-based Vedanta Resources Ltd. will now seek to buy 17.51% of Mumbai-listed Vedanta Ltd. at 235 rupees ($3.24) a share, it said in an exchange filing Tuesday. That’s up from the previous 10% at 160 rupees apiece.
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Deutsche Bank AG is acting as a broker for some investors who are keen to sell their holdings in Credit Suisse Group AG’s supply-chain funds that bought products from Greensill Capital, Bloomberg News reported. The German bank has contacted hedge funds and investment firms to gauge interest for a deal. It’s unclear how many investors are looking to sell and at what price. Credit Suisse started liquidating $10 billion of funds earlier this month after insurance covering some of the debt packaged by Greensill lapsed.
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China is stepping up the bankruptcy process of heavily indebted companies as the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party tries to demonstrate its crisis management before the party congress in 2022, Nikkei Asia reported. Travel conglomerate HNA Group and five other major heavily indebted companies with ties with the government have liabilities totaling 1.8 trillion yuan ($277 billion). A high court in Hainan Province announced on Wednesday that more than 300 companies under the wing of HNA will go into a bankruptcy process called "chong zheng,"a type of corporate rehabilitation.
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