Headlines

Sri Lanka on Tuesday rejected international bondholders' proposal to restructure more than $12 billion in debt, putting at risk critical International Monetary Fund support and delaying its efforts to resolve a two-year-long debt crisis, Reuters reported. Some of the proposal's "baseline" assessments and a lack of a contingency option in the case of continued economic weakness were two the main reasons the deal was not agreed, the government said in a statement.

The euro zone’s second and third-biggest economies are about to pile on debt again after three years of fixing their pandemic-bloated public finances, the International Monetary Fund said, Bloomberg News reported. Both France and Italy will see borrowings as a percentage of gross domestic product rise in 2024 and then keep creeping up over the coming half decade, the fund said in its World Economic Outlook released in Washington on Tuesday.

Global central banks will begin cutting interest rates in the second half of the year as inflation declines, according to a new outlook from the International Monetary Fund, YahooFinance.com reported. Economic growth will also remain resilient, the IMF said in its new World Economic Outlook report released Tuesday. The IMF expects global growth to expand at 3.2% this year, a tenth of a percent higher than forecast in January. It now sees only a 10% chance of a global recession — defined as growth dropping below 2%.

Canadian consumer prices reaccelerated slightly as expected due to higher gasoline prices, while core metrics showed further disinflation progress, keeping the central bank on track to pivot to easier policy as early as June or July, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 2.9% in March from a year ago, up from a 2.8% increase a month earlier, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa. That matched the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Excluding gasoline, the index slowed to 2.8% from a year ago, down from 2.9% in February.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is set to unveil an ambitious budget aimed at fixing housing affordability and helping young Canadians — but the big question is whether it will raise taxes to pay for it, Bloomberg News reported. The government has already announced at least C$46 billion ($33.4 billion), including C$17 billion in loans, for measures that include boosting housing supply, supporting artificial intelligence development and increasing defense spending.

Unemployment ticked higher and wage growth slowed in the U.K. in the three months to February, adding to key signs that inflation is easing and making interest-rate cuts likelier in the coming months, the Wall Street Journal reported. The unemployment rate stood at 4.2% over the period, still relatively low by historical standards but higher than it has been since the three months to August last year, according to Office for National Statistics figures set out Tuesday.

Nigeria is burning through foreign-exchange reserves at a rate not seen in four years, raising concerns that the central bank is depleting its dollar holdings to support the naira after pledging it would allow the currency to float more freely, Bloomberg News reported. Liquid reserves declined 5.6% since March 18, when the naira started its rebound from record-low levels against the dollar, to $31.7 billion as of April 12, according to Bloomberg’s calculations based on the latest available data from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

China’s central bank kept key policy rates steady and drained liquidity from the banking sector as economic data shows fresh signs of weakness, the Wall Street Journal reported. The People’s Bank of China on Monday held the interest rate on its one-year medium-term lending facility at 2.5% while injecting 100 billion yuan ($13.82 billion) funds via the instrument, according to a statement on its website. With CNY170 billion worth of MLF loans due on Wednesday, the PBOC has drained a net CNY70 billion liquidity from the financial system.

State-backed property developer China Vanke said it is facing short-term liquidity pressure and operational difficulties, but added that it has prepared "a basket of plans" to stabilise its business and cut debt, Reuters reported. Vanke's Hong Kong-listed shares closed down 0.8% on Monday after hitting a record intraday low, while its Shenzhen-listed shares edged up 0.6%, stabilising after nine consecutive sessions of decline.

Ghana has made “significant progress” in debt-restructuring negotiations and the latest snag that sent its eurobonds tumbling on Monday will be ironed out in further talks with bondholders, Finance Minister Mohammed Amin Adam said, Bloomberg News reported. Negotiations that started mid-March resulted in an interim deal last week with international investors holding about 40% of Ghana’s $13 billion of defaulted eurobonds.