Headlines

Japan's imports surged in November, outpacing exports and resulting in the 16th straight month of trade deficits, as the spectre of a global slowdown added to the country's worsening terms of trade, Reuters reported. Imports rose 30.3% year-on-year in November, versus the 27.0% increase expected by economists and a 53.5% jump in October, Ministry of Finance (MOF) data showed on Thursday. The surge was a record for the month of November and led by crude oil, coal and liquefied natural gas.

The French economy is set to contract slightly this quarter due to refinery strikes and nuclear reactor outages before activity recovers in the first half of next year, the INSEE official stats agency said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The euro zone's second biggest economy will contract 0.2% in the final three months from the previous quarter, INSEE said in its latest economic outlook. INSEE trimmed its forecast from a previous projection for flat growth after refinery strikes and maintenance outages at some nuclear reactors reduced industrial output.

Australian employment surged by more than three times economists’ estimates in November and unemployment held at a 48-year low, bolstering the case for the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates further in 2023, Bloomberg News reported. Government bond yields rose after the economy added 64,000 roles, trumping a forecast 19,000 gain, official data showed Thursday. The participation rate climbed to 66.8%, matching a record, while unemployment stayed at 3.4%.

New Zealand’s economy grew more than twice as much as economists expected in the third quarter, underscoring the difficulty the central bank faces in trying to damp demand to curb inflation, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product jumped 2.0% from the second quarter, when it gained an upwardly revised 1.9%, Statistics New Zealand said Thursday in Wellington. Economists forecast a 0.9% increase. From a year ago, the economy expanded 6.4%, exceeding the median estimate of 5.5%. The data are “stupendously strong,” said Nat Keall, an economist at ASB Bank in Auckland.

German tennis star Boris Becker has returned to Germany after serving eight months in prison in Britain, his lawyer said on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. The 55-year-old German, who has lived in Britain since 2012, was released on Thursday morning and travelled back to Germany shortly thereafter. Becker "has thus served his sentence and is not subject to any penal restrictions in Germany," his lawyer, Christian-Oliver Moser, said in a statement. He did not give additional details about Becker's location in Germany.

England and Wales saw a 21% annual rise in the number of company insolvencies last month and the second-highest monthly total in figures going back to 2019, published a day after the Bank of England said businesses were coming under increased pressure, Reuters reported. Some 2,029 registered companies in England and Wales were declared insolvent in November, second only to the number in March, when pandemic-related protections against court orders ended.

A shortage of some medicines may eventually arise due to the bankruptcy of the pharmaceutical manufacturer InnoGenerics in Leiden, Netherlands Minister Ernst Kuipers of Public Health informed parliament, the NL Times reported. The court in The Hague declared the generic medicine maker bankrupt on Tuesday. There was no takeover candidate, and the Cabinet decided against investing money in the company due to all kinds of uncertainties. The company had been struggling for some time.

The bankruptcy court has admitted BSE-listed Bil Energy Systems Ltd under the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) and has appointed Anuj Bajpai as its interim resolution professional, the Economic Times of India reported.

Germany's top regulator this week called for global regulation of the cryptocurrency industry to protect consumers, prevent money laundering and preserve financial stability, Reuters reported. Mark Branson, the president of Germany's financial market regulator BaFin, said a hands-off approach that would "just let the industry grow as a playground for grownups" was the wrong tactic. "We've seen the self-regulated world. It will not work," Branson told journalists in Frankfurt on Tuesday evening. Branson was speaking hours after U.S.

The European Central Bank expects inflation to remain above its 2% target for the next three years, one source told Reuters, more than markets currently expect and signalling its fight against runaway prices is far from over, Reuters reported. The ECB is certain to raise interest rates for a fourth consecutive time on Thursday to rein in inflation, and will also announce new quarterly economic projections, used by investors to work out how many more hikes may be on the cards.