Headlines

The International Monetary Fund said it’s looking forward to working with Sri Lanka’s newly elected leftist president, including on the latest review of the country’s $3 billion bailout package, Bloomberg News reported. “We will discuss the timing of the third review of the IMF-supported program with the new administration as soon as practicable,” the organization said in a statement after President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was sworn into office on Monday.

The eurozone economy slowed sharply as the third quarter draws to a close, contrasting still-dynamic growth in the U.S., according to a series of business surveys released on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The eurozone surveys suggest that a soft landing from the surge in inflation that accompanied Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine could be in doubt.

Germany's leading economic institutes have downgraded their forecast for 2024 and now see Europe's largest economy shrinking by 0.1%, people familiar with the figures from the autumn joint economic forecast told Reuters on Tuesday. Germany's economy was the weakest among its large euro zone peers last year with a 0.3% contraction. Inflation was expected to fall to 2.2% this year, from 5.9% last year, the sources said. It would be around the 2% mark targeted by the European Central Bank in the two following years, according to the sources.

Australia’s central bank kept interest rates steady on Tuesday, deepening a split with global counterparts including the Federal Reserve that are loosening policy as they grow increasingly confident that inflation is under control, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to hold the official cash rate at 4.35%, which was widely expected by economists, reveals the stark choice facing policymakers who continue to worry about price pressures that are lessening elsewhere in the world.

Mexico’s headline inflation slowed more than expected in early September, giving Banco de Mexico room to cut borrowing costs for a second straight month at this week’s interest rate meeting, Bloomberg News reported. Official data published Tuesday showed consumer prices rose 4.66% in the first two weeks of the month from the same period a year earlier, just below the 4.71% median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The print was under the 4.83% reading in the previous two-week period.

Brazil’s central bank said all board members supported a gradual start to their cycle of interest rate hikes, falling short of explicitly backing faster increases seen by financial markets going forward, Bloomberg News reported. “All members agreed to start the monetary policy tightening cycle gradually,” central bankers wrote in minutes to their Sept. 17-18 rate meeting, when they raised the benchmark Selic for the first time since 2022, to 10.75%.

For years, Argentina imposed one of the world’s strictest rent-control laws. It was meant to keep homes such as the stately belle epoque apartments of Buenos Aires affordable, but instead, officials here say, rents soared, the Wall Street Journal reported. Now, the country’s new president, Javier Milei, has scrapped the rental law, along with most government price controls, in a fiscal experiment that he is conducting to revive South America’s second-biggest economy. The result: The Argentine capital is undergoing a rental-market boom.

China’s steel crisis is setting the stage for a wave of bankruptcies and speeding a much-needed consolidation of the industry, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Almost three-quarters of the country’s steelmakers suffered losses in the first half and bankruptcy is likely for many of them, Michelle Leung, a senior analyst at BI, said in a note. Xinjiang Ba Yi Iron & Steel Co., Gansu Jiu Steel Group and Anyang Iron & Steel Group Co. face the highest risk, and could be potential acquisition targets, she said.

China’s central bank has lowered a short-term policy rate and pumped more liquidity into the financial system, as it continues efforts to help boost the economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The People’s Bank of China cut the 14-day reverse repurchase interest rate by 10 basis points to 1.85%, and injected 74.5 billion yuan, equivalent to $10.6 billion, of liquidity via the policy tool, it said on its website on Monday.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday issued notice to debt-ridden air carrier SpiceJet over the plea filed by one of its operational creditors, the Times of India reported. A two-member NCLT bench, comprising Mahendra Khandelwal and Sanjeev Tanjan, has directed Spicejet to file a reply and list the matter for the next hearing on November 14. SpiceJet is already facing several insolvency petitions from creditors, including Willis Lease, Aircastle Ireland Ltd, Wilmington and Celestial Aviation at NCLT and the appellate tribunal NCLAT.