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As China’s industrial capacity emerged as a key trade issue, a surge in Chinese bank loans to the sector has often been cited as evidence that Beijing is engaging in a renewed manufacturing push that could flood global markets with cheap goods, Bloomberg News reported. But an examination of those loans by researchers at Rhodium Group showed a significant amount of the money didn’t go into manufacturing at all.

Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda said Wednesday that he is open to the idea of early interest-rate increases if inflation rises at a faster pace than the bank’s projections, the Wall Street Journal reported. “If the outlook for prices is revised upward or if upside risks become high, it will be appropriate for the bank to make an earlier adjustment of the policy interest rate,” Ueda said at an event held by the Yomiuri International Economic Society. The Japanese central bank decided in March to end most of its unconventional easing measures, including negative interest rates.

Orea Mining Corp., has been permanently delisted from trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the OTCQB; transfer agent, clearing, CDS and DTC services are inactive or have terminated, according to a company press release. Orea was assigned into bankruptcy on April 17, 2024. Crowe MacKay & Company Ltd., has been appointed as Licensed Insolvency Trustee (the "Trustee") of Orea's bankrupt estate, and affirmed by Orea's creditors at a meeting held on May 7, 2024.

Sweden’s central bank lowered its key interest rate for the first time in more than eight years on Wednesday, underlining the readiness of European policy makers to move ahead of the Federal Reserve as inflation cools, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Riksbank cut its key rate to 3.75% from 4.0% becoming only the second central bank from a rich, advanced economy to begin its easing cycle following the post-pandemic surge in inflation. Switzerland’s central bank was the first to move in March. This century, Europe has typically followed the U.S. in lowering borrowing costs.

Chile’s consumer prices rose more than forecast last month, underscoring the central bank’s caution over further interest rate cuts after it spearheaded reductions in Latin American over the past year, Bloomberg News reported. Prices increased 0.5% from March, above the 0.4% median estimate from analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The annual inflation rate rose to 4% from 3.7% in the chained series, the national statistics institute reported Wednesday.

Artificial intelligence lacks the human judgement skills needed to set interest rates, the head of the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on Monday, Reuters reported. But AI could make it easier for criminals to launch cyber attacks, said Chia Der Jiun, managing director of Singapore's central bank. He said AI was being used in some economic models and in areas such as fraud detection, but stressed it was not at a stage where it could "supplant human judgement". "There is a great deal of judgement involved in understanding and having a view as to the forward path of inflation...

Uganda plans to pull back from variable interest-rate loans after government debt has more than doubled in almost five years because of obtaining costly commercial credit, the East African nation’s Finance Ministry said, Bloomberg News reported. The stock of public debt jumped to 93.4 trillion shillings ($24.7 billion) at the end of last year from 42.2 trillion shillings in June 2019, according to the ministry’s medium-term debt management report. It was up 13.6% year-on-year in 2023 in dollar terms, partly due to Stanbic Bank budget financing.

The Reserve Bank of Australia left interest rates unchanged Tuesday, and stuck with the message that it isn’t ruling anything out as it seeks to bring inflation under control, the Wall Street Journal reported. The RBA held the official cash rate at 4.35%, where it has remained since November. The outcome was widely anticipated by economists. “The path of interest rates that will best ensure that inflation returns to target in a reasonable timeframe remains uncertain and the Board is not ruling anything in or out,” the RBA said at the end of a two-day policy meeting.

European Central Bank Governing Council member Joachim Nagel said forces including geopolitics and decarbonization could keep consumer-price growth elevated in the years ahead, Bloomberg News reported. “A range of potential factors could lead to higher inflationary pressure in the future,” the Bundesbank president told a conference Tuesday, also citing demographic trends that may lead to “persistently higher wage growth.” While saying more research is needed, Nagel doesn’t expect a return to the kind of weak inflation rates seen before the pandemic.

The number of European banks taking account of environmental risks in their reserves for loan losses has more than tripled in a year, signaling an initial win for the regulator in its effort to prepare for climate change, Bloomberg News reported. After the European Central Bank ramped up pressure last year, a wider effort to change how banks use so-called provisioning overlays has resulted in 55% of lenders now taking climate into account, up from 16% last year, according to a presentation by the regulator delivered last month to auditors and seen by Bloomberg.