Headlines

South Africa’s strained public finances are hindering economic growth and a return to lower inflation, the country’s central bank cautioned on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported. “Reducing public debt to sustainable levels can deliver a triple dividend, namely lower cost of capital, reduced debt-service costs and lower inflation,” the South African Reserve Bank said in its six-monthly Monetary Policy Review. The comments come ahead of a Nov. 1 update on the nation’s budget outlook by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.

A Scottish bakery firm has gone bust, leaving the business with a six-figure debt trail, The National reported. Brawsome Bagels entered financial trouble earlier this year, leading to the closure of its takeaway in Glasgow’s west end. Owner Ian Brooke blamed rising costs, technical issues and change in consumer spending. It isn’t clear how many jobs were affected by the closure. But Brooke's firm, Southside Bagels, now has huge debts and owes money to a range of investors, banks and the HMRC.

The inflation rate in Britain held steady in September, defying expectations of a small decline, after as rise in fuel prices offset a slowdown in food inflation, the New York Times reported. Consumer prices overall rose 6.7 percent last month from a year earlier, the same pace as the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. For the first time in four months, the cost of transportation added to the rate of inflation, because of an increase in gasoline and diesel prices.

Canada will take steps in the coming weeks to ease a rental-unit shortage exacerbated by Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Freeland said that the government is examining options to ensure more short-term rentals become available as long-term rentals. Canada, where population growth is exceeding the pace of housing construction, is the latest country to tackle the problem.

Brazil's Finance Ministry has not taken a stance on limiting installments for credit card payments, the ministry's executive secretary, Dario Durigan, said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The central bank unveiled on Monday a proposal to card issuers and retailers, suggesting a maximum of 12 interest-free installments for credit card payments and limiting interchange fees paid by merchants to credit card issuers.

Retail sales volumes in Brazil overshoot market expectations but still posted a small decrease in August on a monthly basis, statistics agency IBGE said on Wednesday, signaling the sector remains under pressure amid high borrowing costs, Reuters reported. In Latin America's largest economy, retail sales were down 0.2% in August from July, above the median forecast of a 0.7% decrease in a Reuters poll of economists but still in negative territory. The sector has been alternating between gains and losses this year as tight monetary policy keeps sales in check.

Australian house prices are poised for an annual rebound during a policy tightening campaign for the first time since at least the early 1990s, when the Reserve Bank began inflation targeting and entered the modern era, Bloomberg News reported. National property prices will climb 7.7% this year, a Bloomberg survey showed, recovering from a 4.8% decline in 2022. The median estimate of the poll of 12 economists was for the housing market to advance by a further 4.5% in 2024.

Sweden’s Volta Trucks AB is planning to file for bankruptcy following a breakdown in its supply chain, Bloomberg News reported. The decision comes roughly two months after Volta’s battery supplier Proterra Inc. failed, causing the truckmaker to fall short of production targets. The collapse “negatively affected our ability to raise sufficient capital in an already challenging capital-raising environment for electric-vehicle players,” Volta’s board said in a statement. Proterra’s U.S.

The government dropped its pursuit of five former Carillion non-executive directors late last week, hours before a High Court “test case” was due to begin. The Insolvency Service had been seeking disqualification orders that would have prevented five former board members of the construction group, including Philip Green, the long-serving chairman, from acting as directors, but it dropped the civil action on Friday afternoon. A 13-week trial had been due to begin yesterday.

Country Garden's entire offshore debt will be deemed to be in default if China's largest private property developer fails to make a $15 million coupon payment on Tuesday, the end of a 30-day grace period, Reuters reported. Non-payment of this tranche is set to trigger cross defaults in other bonds as is standard in bond contracts. With nearly $11 billion of offshore bonds and $6 billion of offshore loans, a default by Country Garden would set the stage for one of China's biggest corporate debt restructurings, as the country's property sector crisis deepens and drags on economic growth.