Headlines

A serviced-office provider with a slew of sites in London’s financial district has collapsed into administration, the latest flexible workspace business to fold in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. BE Offices Ltd. and almost a dozen subsidiaries entered an administration application at London’s High Court, according to a filing. This included units responsible for workspaces in the city’s Cheapside, Threadneedle Street and in Paddington, the filings show.

Ethiopia became Africa’s latest defaulter after it failed to make an interest payment following the end of a grace period on Monday, Bloomberg News reported. The Horn of Africa nation had to pay a $33 million coupon on Dec. 11. The government didn’t want to make the payment because it “wants to treat all creditors in the same way,” Ahmed Shide, Ethiopia’s minister of finance said on state TV on Thursday. Hinjat Shamil, senior reform advisor at the Ministry of Finance confirmed Monday that the payment had not, and will not be paid.

China's top planning body said on Saturday it had identified a second batch of public investment projects, including flood control and disaster relief programmes, under a bond issuance and investment plan announced in October to boost the economy, Reuters reported. With the latest tranche, China has now earmarked more than 800 billion yuan of its 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion) in additional government bond issuance in the fourth quarter, as it focuses on fiscal steps to shore up the flagging economy.

The rise in Japan’s business service prices held steady at a three-decade high, in a development likely to fuel speculation that the Bank of Japan will inch its way toward normalizing policy in coming months, Bloomberg New reported. The country’s services producer price index, a gauge measuring the costs of a range of goods and services provided by businesses to other firms and government entities, rose 2.3% in November from a year earlier, the BOJ said Tuesday. It was the second month of 2.3% gains, the fastest since April 1992 when excluding periods when there were sales tax increases.

Major Japanese auto manufacturers will invest 150 billion baht ($4.34 billion) in Thailand over the next five years, a Thai government spokesperson said on Monday, supporting the Southeast Asian country's transition to making electric vehicles, Reuters reported. Toyota Motor and Honda Motor will invest about 50 billion baht each, while Isuzu Motors will invest 30 billion baht and Mitsubishi Motors 20 billion baht, spokesperson Chai Wacharoke said, adding this would include the production of electric pickup trucks. Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin concluded a trip to Japan last week.

The Cuban government said Friday it will have to either increase prices for fuel and electricity, or reduce rations for basic supplies, the Associated Press reported. President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that such difficult measures were needed for difficult times, after the minister of the economy said Cuba’s economy contracted between 1% and 2% this year, and inflation ran at about 30%. There were problems in the tourism industry — Cuba's main source of income — and in farm production. “This is a question of complicated measures, as complicated as are these times," Díaz-Canel said.

Nigeria's central bank has lifted a ban on transacting in cryptocurrencies, while saying global trends had shown a need to regulate such activities, the bank said in its latest circular, Reuters reported. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in Feb. 2021 barred banks and financial institutions from dealing in or facilitating transactions in crypto assets, citing money laundering and terrorism financing risks.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda pointed out some positive potential aspects of having higher interest rates under normal economic conditions while also reiterating his pledge to continue with monetary easing patiently in the pursuit of stable inflation, Bloomberg News reported. “The most obvious benefit of a slightly positive inflation rate is larger room for monetary policy responses to an economic downturn,” Ueda said in a speech Monday at a conference hosted by the Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, in Tokyo.

Most Londoners are hunkering down, hoping to weather Britain’s housing storm rather than look for more affordable homes outside the capital, Bloomberg News reported. Londoners spent roughly £29 billion ($37 billion) on homes outside the capital this year, almost a third less than in 2022, according to a report from broker Hamptons International. While affordability pressures caused the rate of London outmigration to rise over the past 12 months, the number of homes bought outside the capital dropped to just over 69,000 — the lowest in nine years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday signed a decree clearing the way for Rosbank to purchase stakes in leading Russian companies owned by Societe Generale, Reuters reported. The decree said that Rosbank will be able to buy SocGen's stakes in energy producers such as Rosneft and Gazprom, metals companies including Norilsk Nickel and Severstal, and other leading Russian blue chip firms. Societe Generale declined to comment. The bank had an exposure of 22.4 billion euros to Russia as of end-June 2021, according to the European Banking Authority's (EBA) data.