Headlines

The World Bank said on Thursday it is providing Turkey with $1.78 billion in relief and recovery financing assistance as the country struggles with the aftermath of an earthquake that has killed over 20,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless, Reuters reported. The World Bank said in a statement that $780 million will become available for Ankara immediately, as the funds will be diverted from two existing World Bank loan projects in Turkey.

The European Central Bank needs to keep raising rates beyond March and must hold them at high levels for a while even as inflation falls and this "sacrifice" becomes more difficult to explain to the public, the ECB’s newest policymaker said, Reuters reported. Having raised rates by 3 percentage points since July, policymakers have started to ponder when and where the fastest tightening cycle in ECB history will end, especially since inflation is now retreating quickly from record highs. But Croatian central bank Governor Boris Vujcic, whose nation joined the euro on Jan.

Japan's government is likely to appoint academic Kazuo Ueda as the next Bank of Japan governor, two government officials told Reuters, a surprise choice that could see the country finally align with other major economies in raising interest rates, Reuters reported. Ueda, a former BOJ policy board member and an academic at Kyoritsu Women's University, is considered an expert on monetary policy but had not even been seen as a dark horse candidate for the top job.

The United States is violating the principles of market economy and international trade rules in considering a ban on Chinese citizens buying property in the United States, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday, Reuters reported. "Generalizing the concept of national security and politicising economic, trade and investment issues violate the rules of market economy and international trade rules," spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.

Moldova’s pro-Western government resigned amid the worsening economic fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia was trying to destabilize the country, the Wall Street Journal reported. Announcing her decision Friday, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita told a news briefing in the capital Chisinau that no one could have predicted the scale of the challenges her government has faced since the Russian invasion began nearly a year ago.

In what could be the first sign of the start of a new phase of the turbulent period in Metro Vancouver’s housing market, Coromandel Properties is insolvent, based on its new filing in the Supreme Court of British Columbia seeking protections, Daily Hive Urbanized reported. The major local real estate developer, which primarily pursues condominium projects, said that it is looking to reposition itself through the stream of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA).

Brazilian hedge fund manager SPX Capital is among asset management firms taking the lead in a group of local bondholders of troubled retailer Americanas SA organizing for restructuring negotiations, Bloomberg News reported. SPX, XP Asset Management, Riza, Icatu Vanguarda, Prada, Moneda and Exes were appointed as members of the committee that will represent a group of holders of the firm’s domestic debt, according to a document reviewed by Bloomberg. The group also approved hiring law firm E.Munhoz Advogados as its legal adviser, according to minutes from a Feb. 6 meeting.

Egypt’s monthly food prices soared at the fastest pace on record, sending inflation in urban parts of the country sharply higher in January and adding to the urgency for the central bank to resume interest-rate hikes, Bloomberg News reported. The surge in cost increases was a surprise to many economists even after last month’s steep currency devaluation heaped more pressures on consumers in the Middle East’s most populous nation.

Shoppers around the world will pay even more for groceries this year than they did in 2022, according to retailers, consumer goods firms and investors, unless commodity costs decline or the shift to cheaper store-brand products accelerates, Reuters reported. Retailers and consumer goods producers have been stuck in tough price negotiations for more than a year now, with friction beginning in 2021 over COVID-related supply chain logjams.

Brazil’s economic team is considering an early review of the country’s inflation targets in an attempt to defuse tensions between the central bank and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has been publicly pushing for higher goals and lower interest rates, Bloomberg News reported. Local assets tumbled on the report, with the real leading losses among emerging markets, as investors didn’t count on the possibility of an imminent change to inflation targets.