Headlines

Pepco Group's German unit has filed for insolvency proceedings as it seeks to revamp its loss-making store network in the country, Reuters reported. Pepco Germany filed for the proceedings at a Berlin court. The unit operates 64 stores and employs around 500 people. All stores will remain open until further notice. Read more.

The Frankfurt-based European Central Bank kept the deposit facility rate, the main interest rate influencing monetary policy, at 2% on Thursday, which is the lowest level in more than two years, EuroNews reported. As the economy is performing relatively well and the US trade talks are still underway, analysts were expecting no rush from the European Central Bank (ECB) to lower the benchmark interest rate. The ECB sets the monetary policy for the eurozone, mainly through three interest rates.

Euro zone business activity accelerated faster than forecast this month, supported by a solid improvement in the bloc's dominant services industry and with manufacturing showing further signs of recovery, a survey showed on Thursday, Reuters reported. HCOB's preliminary composite euro zone Purchasing Managers' Index, compiled by S&P Global and seen as a good guide to growth, rose to an 11-month high of 51.0 points from 50.6 in June. For the first time in over a year, overall demand did not decline, though there was no expansion.

The member states on Thursday approved the list of retaliatory tariffs proposed by the European Commission to counter US trade measures, with only Hungary voting against, EuroNews reported. The list includes an initial package of measures adopted in early April and targets products including aircraft, cars and car parts, orange juice, poultry, soybeans, steel and aluminium, yachts. Bourbon whiskey was also included in the list despite intense lobbying by France and Ireland which fear US retaliation on wine and spirits.

A top New Zealand central banker said on Thursday that while the full impact of U.S. tariffs remains uncertain, they could ease medium-term inflation pressures in the country, although the tariffs might dampen business investment and household spending, Reuters reported. As countries redirect exports away from the United States, falling import prices may help lower domestic inflation, Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) Chief Economist Paul Conway said in a speech at Business New Zealand. "There's a whole lot of 'wait and see' going on out there right now," Conway said.

China released a draft amendment to its pricing law on Thursday as part of efforts to curb excessive competition and price wars among firms, amid persistent deflationary pressures, Reuters reported. Chinese leaders have signaled they will rein in price wars among producers as expectations grow for a new round of factory capacity cuts in a long-awaited but challenging campaign against deflation - a move that could pose risks to economic growth.

Turkey’s central bank moved to lower borrowing costs for the first time in nearly five months, restarting an easing cycle that had been disrupted by a political furor, the Wall Street Journal reported. The central bank said Thursday it would lower its benchmark rate by three points to 43% from 46%, marking the first time since early March that it has cut rates. Later that month, a prominent political rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was arrested by police on what the opposition described as politically motivated charges.

President Trump’s trade agreement with Japan, announced this week, has intensified pressure on South Korea to cut a deal that doesn’t leave it at a disadvantage relative to its biggest rival in East Asia, the New York Times reported. Kim Jung-Kwan, South Korea’s industry minister, who arrived in Washington on Wednesday for negotiations, pledged an “all-out effort” to strike a deal by the Aug. 1 deadline to stave off a 25 percent tariff that the White House threatened in April and again this month. Moving forward, Mr.

Mexico's headline inflation slowed in the first half of July, falling back within the central bank's target range and fueling expectations that the bank should continue to bring down interest rates in Latin America's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. Consumer prices rose 3.55% in the 12 months through mid-July, data from the national statistics agency showed on Thursday, slowing down from the 4.51% reported a month earlier.

Hungary's populist prime minister has spent years building a close political relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump and aligning himself with the MAGA movement, the Associated Press reported. But despite Viktor Orbán's success in gaining favor with the culturally conservative and nationalist wing of Trump's administration, his country is poised to be among those hard hit by Trump's tariffs against the European Union. Trump earlier this month announced he would levy tariffs of 30% against Mexico and the EU beginning Aug.