Headlines

Built near a spewing volcano, it was the biggest infrastructure project ever in Ecuador, a concrete colossus bankrolled by Chinese cash and so important to Beijing that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, spoke at the 2016 inauguration. Today, thousands of cracks have emerged in the $2.7 billion Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant, government engineers said, raising concerns that Ecuador’s biggest source of power could break down, the Wall Street Journal reported. At the same time, the Coca River’s mountainous slopes are eroding, threatening to damage the dam.

Canadian consumers remained resilient in December, even in the face of elevated inflation and rising interest rates, Bloomberg News reported. Receipts for retailers jumped 0.5% last month, according to an advance estimate released Friday by Statistics Canada. That follows a 0.1% drop in November, which was led by lower sales of food and beverages, as well as building material and garden supplies. The increase in December more than offsets the lower-than-expected losses in November and adds to a 1.3% gain in October, ending last year with relatively strong retail sales.

Jutta Doenges, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who also ran Germany’s debt management agency, will take over as chief financial officer of recently nationalized utility Uniper SE, Bloomberg News reported. Doenges will take over on March 1, and replace Tiina Tuomela, whose contract expires, the company said in a statement, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg. The Dusseldorf-based company suffered massive losses after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a surge in gas prices, and is in the midst of a management shakeup following a government takeover.

Argentina and Brazil are in the preliminary stages of renewing discussions on forming a common currency for financial and commercial transactions, reviving an often-discussed plan that would face numerous political and economic hurdles, Bloomberg News reported. South America’s two largest economies have considered options to coordinate their currencies for decades, often to counter the influence of the dollar in the region. The persistent macroeconomic imbalances of both countries, together with recurrent political obstacles to the idea, has resulted in little practical progress.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin-touting government is poised to deliver on a $604 million bond maturing this week, in a turn of events that leaves investors in distressed emerging-market debt with only one more big maturity to worry about this year, Bloomberg News reported. The Central American nation is widely expected to repay creditors on Tuesday after receiving a last-minute loan and undertaking two bond buybacks. The maturing note, which now hovers at about a penny below par, has soared by a whopping 34 cents from an all-time low in July.

A Rio de Janeiro court on Thursday accepted Brazilian retailer Americanas SA's bankruptcy protection request, the firm said, days after the company uncovered nearly $4 billion in accounting inconsistencies and amid a legal feud with creditors, Reuters reported. Americanas, backed by the billionaire trio that founded 3G Capital, said in a securities filing that it will restructure debts of about 43 billion reais ($8.23 billion).

China’s housing market flipped from being a growth driver to an economic drag in 2022, with sales slumping, prices falling and widespread job losses. The prognosis for this year isn’t much better, compounding Beijing’s efforts to get its economy back on firmer footing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sales of new residential properties in the country tumbled 28% last year to the equivalent of $1.7 trillion in value terms, a five-year low.

U.S. authorities designated cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato Ltd. as a primary money-laundering concern and charged its founder for allegedly facilitating money laundering for criminals, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Treasury Department designated Bitzlato under a section of the USA Patriot Act, a law used to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, for allegedly laundering illicit funds for ransomware actors based in Russia. This type of action, a rarely used so-called death-knell sanction that cuts off the entity from the U.S.

India's junior IT minister on Thursday said there was no issue with cryptocurrencies in India if all laws are followed, in remarks that contradicted the central bank's view advising investors to stay away from crypto, Reuters reported. India has been trying to come up with regulation for cryptocurrencies, with a central bank deputy governor even calling for them to be banned, but the government has not been able to formulate legislation yet.