Headlines

New Zealand’s economy exited recession with modest expansion in the first quarter, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product gained 0.2% from the previous quarter, when it declined 0.1%, Statistics New Zealand said Thursday in Wellington. Economists expected 0.1% growth. GDP rose 0.3% from the year-earlier quarter, beating the 0.2% estimate. The economy is struggling as the Reserve Bank keeps its key interest rate at 5.5%, the highest since 2008, to bring inflation back under control.

China left benchmark lending rates unchanged at a monthly fixing on Thursday, in line with market expectations, Reuters reported. The steady monthly loan prime rate (LPR) fixings underscore that Beijing's monetary easing efforts continued to be limited by narrowing interest rate margins and a weakening currency, despite a flurry of recent data showing more support is needed to shore up an uneven economic recovery. The one-year LPR was kept at 3.45%, while the five-year LPR was unchanged at 3.95%.

China’s government has responded to calls for help from beleaguered solar manufacturers, promising to guide capacity expansions and avoid redundant investments, Bloomberg News reported. The National Energy Administration will monitor solar factory utilization and expansion plans to help improve market conditions, Li Chuangjun, director of the agency’s renewable energy department, said at a press briefing on Thursday. The pledge comes after solar companies called on Beijing to step in after a surge in capacity caused equipment prices and company profits to crater.

The Swiss National Bank lowered borrowing costs at a second straight meeting, keeping it at the forefront of global interest-rate cuts as it battles low inflation and a strengthening franc, Bloomberg News reported. Officials in Zurich reduced their benchmark by 25 basis points to 1.25% on Thursday after a decision that observers found hard to predict. Some investors bet on a cut, while a small majority of the economists surveyed by Bloomberg anticipated no change. Policymakers also lowered their inflation projections, seeing it at 1% in 2026.

Germany has fined Citigroup nearly 13 million euros ($13.94 million) for lapses in its trading system controls, the nation's bank regulator said on Thursday, as its consumer protection division imposed its largest penalty ever, Reuters reported. It is related to a mishap in 2022 involving $1.4 billion in mistaken sell orders in equities, an event that riled markets and for which Citigroup was already fined 61.6 million pounds ($78.24 million) by British authorities in May.

China’s Commerce Ministry on Thursday accused the European Union of making unreasonable demands in its investigation into imports of Chinese electric vehicles before announcing it was raising tariffs by as much as 38%, the Associated Press reported. Ministry spokesman He Yadong said that the European side had demanded excessive amounts of information from Chinese automakers and then unfairly accused the Chinese companies of failing to cooperate.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition ditched a plan to buy the entire German unit of Tennet Holding BV’s power grid, after the cost proved too much for the government’s stretched finances, Bloomberg News reported. Discussions on a full sale by the Dutch state-owned grid operator to German development bank KfW have ended after more than a year of negotiations, Tennet said Thursday in a statement.

Fewer companies went bust in May than the previous month, amid a pick-up in business activity across England and Wales, according to official data, PA Media reported. U.K. company insolvencies fell 6% month-on-month to 2,006, which is 21% lower than in May 2023, the Insolvency Service said. The number of firms going out of business rose steadily during 2021 and 2022, with 2023 seeing the highest annual number of company insolvencies since 1993.

British inflation fell back to the Bank of England’s 2% target for the first time in almost three years, a milestone that likely comes too late to improve the political fortunes of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before the looming election, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer price increases eased in May from 2.3% the month before, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday.

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has provided comprehensive clarity on the application of set-offs within the framework of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), particularly during the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP). The recent ruling in the case of Bharti Airtel Ltd and Anr. v Vijaykumar V. Iyer addresses a frequently contested issue, offering a detailed analysis of different types of set-offs and their implications, the Times of India reported.