Headlines

Portugal’s fragile recovery is losing momentum, with growth held back by sluggish investment and weak exports as uncertainty and corporate debt weigh on the economy, the International Monetary Fund has warned. The consumption-based recovery of the past three years is running out of steam, the fiscal stance remains expansionary, the current account is weakening and the banking system is plagued by low profitability,” the fund said on Thursday in its latest report on Portugal’s progress since a 2011-14 bailout programme.

China’s economy is showing signs of stability, a welcome break for both investors and a leadership that has spent much of 2016 battling economic headwinds. But it is an engineered calm that comes at a cost, say economists, The Wall Street Journal reported. Over the past month, gauges such as industrial production and fixed-asset investment were surprisingly robust. Imports rose for the first time in nearly two years and strong property sales in large cities helped prop up demand for steel and cement. “The data is ticking along,” said Chris Weston, chief strategist at IG Markets Ltd.

Hanjin Shipping’s biggest shareholder and lead creditor are to provide funding to pay for the unloading of cargo from dozens of ships stranded at sea after the Korean company collapsed into bankruptcy, The Guardian reported. An estimated $14bn of cargo was trapped on Hanjin ships when the world’s seventh-largest container carrier collapsed late last month, creating havoc before the holiday shopping season. Korea Development Bank (KDB), Hanjin’s lead creditor, will offer a 50bn won (£35m) credit line.

After more than two years in court-supervised bankruptcy protection, private equity investment firm called Bedrock Industries Group —a fund that buys distressed companies and restructures them —moved into prime position to buy U.S. Steel Canada, CBC.ca reported. A memordandum of understanding with the province was announced Wednesday, but there are many things that would still have to be negotiated first- and many other players in those negotiations.

Foreign investors dropped out of Vancouver’s property market last month after the provincial government imposed a 15 percent surcharge to stem a surge in home prices, Bloomberg News reported. Overseas buyers accounted for less than 1 percent of the C$6.5 billion ($5 billion) of residential real estate purchases between Aug. 2 to 31 in Metro Vancouver, according to data released by British Columbia’s Ministry of Finance on Thursday. In the roughly seven weeks prior to that, they’d represented 17 percent of transactions by value.

The liquidators of Clerys say the winding up of the old Dublin department store is being delayed by legal proceedings and could take a further two years to complete. They also confirm they have made reports to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) about the alleged conduct of its directors, the Irish Times reported.

Korea Development Bank (KDB), the lead creditor of Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd is considering lending about 50 billion won (34.51 million pounds) to help unload stranded cargo, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday, Reuters reported. An estimated $14 billion of cargo was trapped on Hanjin ships when the world's seventh-largest container carrier collapsed late last month, creating havoc ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season.

The Bank of Japan plunged into an approach to monetary policy unseen in decades, introducing a target for 10-year interest rates in its latest bid to restart economic growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Japanese central bank, which has struggled for nearly two decades to bring about steady inflation, said Wednesday it wants to keep the yield on 10-year Japanese government bonds at zero, and will adjust the pace of its bond buying as needed to achieve that.

America Movil SAB is interested in acquiring some or all of the operations run by struggling Brazilian rival Oi SA, the chief executive of the Mexican telecom giant said in a newspaper interview published on Wednesday. Brazilian paper Valor Economico reported that Daniel Hajj, CEO of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim's telecom empire, said he was eyeing an acquisition of Oi operations whether or not the company is split up in the midst of an in-court restructuring. "We are open to looking at anything," Hajj said in the Valor report.

The explosive growth of spending overseas by Chinese tourists dwarfs the increase in the number of Chinese traveling abroad. The most likely reason? Disguised capital outflows, Bloomberg News reported. So says former U.S. Treasury official Brad Setser, who drilled into the spending data provided by some of the most popular destinations for Chinese travelers.