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China's foreign exchange regulator phoned several banks on Wednesday to warn them against aggressively selling the Chinese currency, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, in a new sign of official discomfort with recent yuan weakness, Reuters reported. The Chinese yuan has been dropping against the dollar, and market participants said the telephone calls suggested authorities may be getting uncomfortable with the speed of the slide. The yuan jumped to 6.8605 per dollar in offshore trade after Reuters published news of the calls.

This inability to find people to hire has spread across the British economy, in virtually all industries, and the solution chosen by many employers — higher pay — is embedding inflationary pressures deeper into an economy where prices are soaring, the New York Times reported. Last week, Britons learned that the annual rate of inflation reached 10.1 percent in July, the fastest pace since 1982, as energy prices rose and businesses passed higher costs — for supplies but also labor — onto their customers. In some ways it’s a great time to be a worker in the hospitality business.

Chile’s record current account deficit will keep the peso under pressure long after the central bank’s $25 billion intervention program is done and dusted, Bloomberg News reported. The deficit swelled to 8.5% of gross domestic product in the second quarter, the highest for at least two decades. That was roughly triple the year-earlier figure and represented $6.6 billion leaving the country in just three months. Not only is that rate of outflow unprecedented this century, it also comes at the worst possible moment as financing costs rise worldwide.

Mexican consumer prices rose 0.42% during the first half of August, pushing annual headline inflation to 8.62%, both slightly ahead of market expectations, data from the national INEGI statistics agency showed on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The closely watched core price index, which strips out some volatile food and energy prices, climbed 0.49% in early August. Annual core inflation stood at 7.97%.

Brazilian central bank chief Roberto Campos Neto on Tuesday predicted that inflation will reach 6.5% or a little lower this year, amid government measures that lowered taxes on key goods, Reuters reported. The estimate is more optimistic than private economists' expectations of inflation at 6.82%, according to a central bank weekly survey, but still above the official target of 3.5%, plus or minus 1.5 percentage point. "This year, inflation is going to be around 6.5%, perhaps a little bit lower.

Argentina's government will launch three measures in the coming days aimed at restricting imports and preserving the central bank's dwindling foreign currency reserves, a source told Reuters on Tuesday. The measures come as new data on Monday showed a trade deficit in July of $437 million, the second deficit in a row for Latin America's third-largest economy.

Cash-strapped Chinese developer Shimao Group has proposed a two-class restructuring plan to offshore creditors to repay $11.8 billion over a period of three to eight years, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter and a document seen by Reuters. Shanghai-based Shimao, which first missed a public offshore bond obligation last month, is the first major Chinese developer to kick off negotiations on restructuring terms with creditors.

Financial creditors to Future Retail have put in claims for Rs 21,058 crore, while operational creditors have sought another Rs 265 crore. Besides these, there are employee dues of Rs 9.8 crore and Rs 1.1 crore claims from other creditors, the Financial Times of India reported. Bank of India had initiated bankruptcy proceedings against Future Retail following the company's failure to repay creditors after lenders rejected a restructuring proposal where Reliance Group would take over the retail giant.

Russia's economy has avoided the meltdown many predicted after Moscow sent its forces into Ukraine six months ago, with higher prices for its oil exports cushioning the impact of Western sanctions, but hardships are emerging for some Russians, Bloomberg News reported. After predicting at one point that the economy would shrink more than 12% this year, exceeding the falls in output seen after the Soviet Union collapsed and during the 1998 financial crisis, the economy ministry now expects a 4.2% contraction.

The Moscow Exchange will ban the use of dollars as collateral to underwrite transactions, it said on Monday, as Russia seeks to cut dependence on currencies of nations that have imposed sanctions on it, Reuters reported. A statement posted on the exchange's website said the new policy would come into effect on Aug. 29. It gave no details. Earlier this month the exchange - the country's largest bourse - said it would limit the use of dollars as collateral to 25% from 50%.