Headlines

Euro zone inflation reached a new record high of 8.9% year-on-year in July, the EU's statistics office confirmed on Thursday, with the core measure, excluding the most volatile components and key for monetary policy, also sharply up, Reuters reported. The European Union's statistics office Eurostat said consumer prices in the 19 countries using the euro rose 0.1% month-on-month in July for a 8.9% year-on-year increase, the highest since the euro was created in 1999.

The International Monetary Fund is tapping for a key role in talks with Ukraine the economist who led negotiations with Argentina to rescue its record loan, as the lender of last resort seeks to help the European country upended by Russia’s invasion, Bloomberg News reported. Julie Kozack is set to oversee and guide the staff team dealing with Ukraine after she becomes a deputy director of the European department next month, according to the fund.

For decades, buying property was considered a safe investment in China. Now, instead of building a foundation of wealth for the country’s middle class, real estate has become a source of discontent and anger, the New York Times reported. In more than 100 cities across China, hundreds of thousands of Chinese homeowners are banding together and refusing to repay loans on unfinished properties, one of the most widespread acts of public defiance in a country where even minor protests are quelled.

Since 2011, Peruvians have lived under seven presidents and seen four ex-leaders detained or wanted on corruption allegations. Yet, in the same period Peru has held onto the unlikely title of the fastest growing major economy in Latin America, Reuters reported. That period of standout growth is set to end this year, an analysis of World Bank data and International Monetary Fund forecasts shows, with Colombia overtaking Peru. Slowing growth at the world's No.

Chile's gross domestic product came in below expectations in the second quarter of 2022, central bank data showed on Thursday, leading economists to forecast a potential recession as pandemic-related stimulus is unwound, Reuters reported. The Andean country's economy grew 5.4% in the second quarter from a year earlier, but showed no growth from the previous three months in seasonally adjusted terms. The performance highlighted Chile's struggle to grow as the central bank aggressively tightens its monetary policy to tame soaring inflation, which reached a near three-decade high last month.

Ghana's central bank on Wednesday delivered its biggest rate hike ever, a 300 basis point increase to 22%, at an emergency meeting to address the economy's rapid deterioration amid crippling inflation, Reuters reported. The hike comes just three weeks after it kept its monetary policy rate unchanged at 19% and said it was pausing to observe the impact of a series of record-breaking hikes. It had been due to meet again in late September, but on Monday it said an emergency meeting was needed.

Endo International Plc filed for bankruptcy yesterday after reaching a $6 billion deal with some of its creditors, as the U.S. drugmaker seeks to settle thousands of lawsuits over its alleged role in the country's opioid epidemic, Reuters reported. The pharmaceutical company is the latest to file for chapter 11 to address opioid claims. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, filed in September 2019, while Mallinckrodt Plc, a generic opioid manufacturer, recently emerged from bankruptcy.

State-owned SBI has filed an insolvency petition against the country's largest sugar firm Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar Ltd, the Economic Times of India reported. SBI as a financial creditor has filed the plea before the Allahabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). In a regulatory filing, Bajaj Hindusthan Ltd informed that "we understand that State Bank of India, financial creditor through its advocate has initiated Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process of Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar Ltd." The petition has been filed under Section 7 of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016.

The U.K.’s annual rate of inflation moved into double digits in July and is set to rise even higher by the end of the year, heaping greater pressure on stretched household budgets and threatening a lengthy economic contraction, the Wall Street Journal reported. That pickup in inflation has been replicated in other parts of Europe, even as consumer prices have started to slow in the U.S. That is because energy prices have continued to accelerate across Europe as Russia withholds supplies of natural gas, with the continent facing a possible crunch this winter.

Egypt’s central bank governor resigned Wednesday as the Middle East’s most populous nation struggles to curb inflation triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine, high oil prices and a drop in tourism, the Associated Press reported. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi accepted the resignation of Tarek Amer and named him a presidential adviser, the Egyptian leader’s office said in a statement. The brief statement offered no explanation for Amer’s resignation. No replacement was immediately named for Amer, who had been appointed governor of the central bank in November 2015.