Headlines

Interest rates in Canada may have to stay restrictive for longer to ensure inflation declines to the Bank of Canada's 2% target, Governor Tiff Macklem said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Macklem, speaking after the bank announced that it was holding its key rate at 4.50%, said the central bank's governing council had discussed whether rates had been raised enough. Macklem said that while the bank was encouraged inflation was dropping, the job of monetary policy was not done.

Zambia is planning to finish tests that simulate real-world cryptocurrency usage by the end of June to help it create regulations that balance citizens' safety with innovation, science and technology minister Felix Mutati told Reuters. The southern African country also needs digital infrastructure, including digital identities, before cryptocurrencies can be introduced, Mutati said in an interview on Wednesday.

The world economy faces the increasing risk of a painful slowdown amid worries about the global banking system and concerns that rising interest rates could force banks to curtail lending, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. The warning follows weeks of turmoil in the global banking sector, which included two bank failures in the United States and UBS’s takeover of Credit Suisse, brokered by the Swiss government.

South Africa’s economy probably entered a technical recession with a second straight quarterly contraction, according to an index that tracks interbank payments, Bloomberg News reported. The BankservAfrica Economic Transactions Index, an early indicator of economic activity, dropped 1.7% in the first quarter compared with the prior three months. A median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts is for a quarterly gross domestic product expansion of 0.2%.

Argentina's inflation rate is expected to have clocked in at an eight-month high of 7.1% in March, according to a Reuters poll of analysts, piling pressure on the government as it looks to tame spiraling prices that have pushed up poverty levels, Reuters reported. The South American country is battling annual inflation above 100%, one of the highest levels globally, which saps earning power and has sharpened a cost-of-living crisis, hurting the ruling Peronist coalition ahead of elections in October.

The French economy is set to grow around 0.2% in the first quarter of 2023, up from around 0.1% forecast last month, the central bank said on Tuesday, as activity in three main sectors picked up steam, Reuters reported. The Bank of France said companies polled in its monthly business sentiment survey reported activity in March was stronger than in February in the industrial sector, as well as in services and in construction. The improving sentiment comes despite widespread strikes against pension reform that have weighed on transport and energy.

The World Bank on Wednesday said it would finance $200 million to help fix Ukraine's energy and heating infrastructure, with partners and others to provide another $300 million in additional funding as the project expands, Reuters reported. The $200 million grant will be used to make emergency repairs to Ukraine's transition transformers, mobile heat boilers and other emergency critical equipment, the World Bank said in a statement. Read more.

Swiss lawmakers blamed the government, regulators and the management for failures around the takeover of Credit Suisse Group AG last month, setting the stage for an election year in which thousands of jobs are at stake, Bloomberg News reported. Though the legislative doesn’t have the power to derail the takeover, the extraordinary parliamentary meeting scheduled for three days starting Tuesday, is forcing the government into continued defense of its actions during the unpopular emergency takeover by UBS Group AG announced on March 19.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Bengaluru has admitted Mantri Developers Pvt. Ltd., a Bengaluru-based real estate firm, into the insolvency process and appointed Ahsan Ahmad as the insolvency resolution professional (IRP) to oversee the proceedings, the Economic Times of India reported. The decision follows an application by Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd, which claimed the developer defaulted on dues exceeding Rs 456.68 crore ($6.2 million), including principal and interest.

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema said China and the U.S. have a responsibility to set aside their differences and help countries such as his get the debt relief they need to avoid further damage to their economies, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. With finance officials from around the world gathering in Washington this week for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank biannual meetings, Mr. Hichilema’s country is emerging as a focal point of discussions on how to restructure poor nations’ debts. U.S.