Headlines

European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane urged a “steady pace” of interest-rate increases in fighting record inflation to minimize negative consequences -- seeming to push back after some of his colleagues floated a 75 basis-point hike at next week’s meeting, Bloomberg News reported.

The Czech Republic will convene an emergency meeting of European Union energy ministers on Sept. 9 to find a bloc-wide agreement on tackling surging power costs, potentially through capping the price of gas used in electricity production, Reuters reported. Europe's electricity costs have soared since Russia curbed gas supplies to Europe, sending prices of the fuel sharply higher, and there are fears Moscow could cut flows further in retaliation for Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

Singapore on Monday announced new work visa rules to woo foreign talent as the Asian financial hub looks to bolster its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. The measures include a new five-year visa for people earning at least S$30,000 ($21,445.42) a month that allows holders to job for multiple companies at one time and grants their spouses eligibility to work. The new visa will be available from January.

There was much relief for investors in U.S.-listed Chinese firms after Beijing and Washington struck a long-pending audit deal, but legal experts and China watchers warn the two sides could still clash over how the accord is interpreted and implemented, Reuters reported. U.S. regulators have for more than a decade demanded access to audit papers of U.S.-listed Chinese companies, but Beijing has been reluctant to let U.S. regulators inspect its accounting firms, citing national security concerns.

A U.S. judge on Friday recommended that victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks not be allowed to seize billions of dollars of assets belonging to Afghanistan's central bank to satisfy court judgments they obtained against the Taliban, Reuters reported. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan said Da Afghanistan Bank was immune from jurisdiction, and that allowing the seizures would effectively acknowledge the Islamist militant group as the Afghan government, something only the U.S. president can do.

The volume of retail sales fell by 8.1 per cent in the year to July as sales of motors, food, beverages, and tobacco all saw double digit reductions despite the easing of the Covid-19 emergency, the latest data from the Central Statistics Office shows, the Irish Times reported. Four sectors showed an annual increase in the volume of sales. The largest of these was in bars where sales soared by 56.8 per cent compared with July 2021 when some Covid-19 restrictions still applied. However, bar sales remained 8.4 per cent lower than pre-Covid-19 levels in February 2020.

Creditors filed a lawsuit against Mexican multimedia conglomerate TV Azteca S.A.B. de C.V., controlled by business mogul Ricardo Salinas Pliego, after the company skipped out on payments to U.S. based investors for over a year while continuing to pay other debts in Mexico, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported.

China's central bank has stepped up pressure on lenders with new instructions to grow loans, six bankers with knowledge of the matter said, as the world's second-biggest economy faces an economic downturn and a plunge in borrowers' confidence, Reuters reported. The informal message, issued via phone calls over recent months to commercial, rural and even foreign banks, was to lend more money to productive businesses and put less of it in financial investments, the banking sources said.

China's banking and insurance regulator has agreed in principal to allow two rural banks in Liaoning Province to enter bankruptcy proceedings, according to an official statement released on Friday, Reuters reported. The two banks are Liaoyang Rural Commercial Bank Co., Ltd and Liaoning Taizihe Village Bank Co., Ltd, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said. Read more.

SAS AB, which is working its way through a chapter 11 restructuring in the U.S., warned that much more needs to be done to persuade stakeholders to invest in the ailing Scandinavian airline, Bloomberg News reported. The airline is also having to overcome the effects of a pilots’ strike and travel disruptions that have hampered its important summer season, just as the price of kerosene has skyrocketed and inflation is accelerating.