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India on Thursday ordered a halt to its largest rice export category in a move that will roughly halve shipments by the world's largest exporter of the grain, triggering fears of further inflation on global food markets, Reuters reported. The government said it was imposing a ban on non-basmati white rice after retail rice prices climbed 3% in a month after late but heavy monsoon rains caused significant damage to crops.
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UK job vacancies rose for a fifth month, boosting salaries and signaling tightness in the labor market that’s likely to fan inflation, data from the search engine Adzuna showed, Reuters reported. The jobs search site listed 1.06 million vacancies across the UK in June, up 0.78% from the month before but 12% lower than a year ago. It said advertised salaries rose 3.6% from a year ago to £37,807, and the number of days to fill open positions fell to a record low.
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Brazil’s petrochemical giant Braskem said Friday it had reached a $356 million settlement with a coastal city where four decades of the company’s rock salt mining destroyed five urban neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people, the Associated Press reported. Around 200,000 people in the Alagoas state’s capital of Maceio were affected by the excessive extraction of rock salt, according to the Brazil Senate’s website. In recent years, several Maceio communities became ghost towns as residents accepted Braskem’s payouts to relocate.
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Algeria has applied to join the BRICS group and submitted a request to become a shareholder member of BRICS Bank with an amount of $1.5 billion, Ennahar TV quoted Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune as saying, Reuters reported. It added that Tebboune said at the end of his visit to China that Algeria had sought to join the BRICS to open new economic opportunities. The North Africa country is rich in oil and gas resources and seeking to diversify its economy and strengthen its partnership with countries such as China.
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Nearly 70% of Israeli startups have taken action to relocate parts of their business outside Israel, a survey released on Sunday by an Israeli non-profit organisation on the government's planned judicial overhaul found, Reuters reported. The survey by Start-Up Nation Central sought to measure the economic impact plans by the hard-right coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would restrict the Supreme Court's powers to strike down legislation.
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Chinese regulators met with global investors on Friday, according to people familiar with the matter, stepping up the government’s bid to boost market confidence as the country’s economic recovery loses steam, Bloomberg News reported. China Securities Regulatory Commission Vice Chairman Fang Xinghai met with some global venture capital and private equity firms to hear their concerns about investment in the country, the people familiar said, requesting not to be named because the matter is private.
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Mexico has been hit with three sets of trade arbitration proceedings in the past few days, according to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), Reuters reported. First Majestic Silver and Silver Bull Resources, both Canadian companies, as well as U.S. food firm Arbor Confections have filed cases against Mexico, ICSID said in brief statements issued between Thursday and Friday. The proceedings all invoked the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) which replaced NAFTA.
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China's frail growth could weigh on companies with exposure to the world's second-largest economy, including Apple, big chipmakers and luxury retailers as they report quarterly results in the next few weeks, Reuters reported. Wall Street is bracing for a steep drop in second-quarter U.S. earnings, with profit margins expected to be hurt by U.S. inflation and weaker spending. Both U.S. and European companies with exposure to China could be hit by that economy's sluggish growth as its post-COVID momentum has faltered rapidly.
Bron, the finance and production company that backed films including Joker, Licorice Pizza, Bombshell and Judas and the Black Messiah, has filed for bankruptcy, its co-founder Aaron J. Gilbert said Wednesday, Deadline reported. In a letter to “friends, partners, team members and backers,” Gilbert wrote today that Bron — the parent company of Bron Studios and Bron Digital — had filed for creditor protection with the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Canada, where it is based, concurrent with chapter 15 in the U.S.
Perativ Holdings Ltd., a leading Canadian operator of ATMs, has filed for creditor protection after several years of operating losses, citing a pandemic-related decline in consumers’ use of cash, as well as two major thefts, the Globe and Mail reported. The company supplies banks with ATM management software and operates more than 7,000 “white label” ATMs. Such ATMs aren’t owned by banks, and are often located in small businesses that offer cash discounts or don’t accept credit payments.