Headlines

Embattled property developer China Evergrande Group said one of its units has been told to honor a $1.1 billion guarantee, revealing yet another large financial obligation that wasn’t previously disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reported. Evergrande, in a regulatory filing on Sunday, said one of its subsidiaries in China had provided counter guarantees to an unnamed entity by pledging its shares in Shengjing Bank Co., a regional lender based in the city of Shenyang, the capital of northeastern Liaoning province.

The Bank of England says it will act forcefully if needed to stop the surge in inflation from turning into a long-term problem, meaning it could deliver a rare half-percentage point interest rate rise as soon as this week, Reuters reported. Here are some of the things that Governor Andrew Bailey and his colleagues will be looking as they assess the persistence of inflation pressures ahead of their next scheduled monetary policy announcement at 1100 GMT on Thursday. Measures of inflation expectations and prices charged by companies have slowed recently but core pay has risen.

A deal to sell a majority stake in Thailand’s largest crypto exchange to the nation’s oldest bank remains stuck in due diligence more than eight months after the plan was unveiled, according to the platform’s co-founder, Bloomberg News reported. The proposal with SCB X Pcl that helped propel Bitkub Online Co. into a so-called unicorn has yet to be wrapped up, according to Jirayut Srupsrisopa, chief executive officer of Bitkub Capital Group Holdings.

New Economy Minister Sergio Massa is preparing a set of measures to address one of Argentina’s key problems: a chronic shortage of dollars that has caused the U.S. currency to soar in parallel exchange markets, Bloomberg News reported. Massa, who was named by President Alberto Fernandez last week as the head of an expanded and empowered economy ministry, is expected to unveil incentives to exporters as well as policies to attract more foreign investment and to capture additional tourism revenue, according to people with knowledge of the plan.

Sri Lanka’s new president said the country has experienced the worst of its economic crisis and that restoring political stability will allow it to begin turning a corner, starting with finalizing negotiations for an International Monetary Fund bailout that had stalled due to recent turmoil, the Wall Street Journal reported. “I think we’ve already hit the bottom,” Ranil Wickremesinghe said in an interview Sunday with The Wall Street Journal.

Zambia's sovereign dollar-denominated Eurobonds gained more than 1 cent in the dollar on Monday, after a pledge on Saturday by bilateral creditors to negotiate debt relief cleared the way for a $1.4 billion deal with the IMF, Reuters reported. Its 2024 maturity was up 1.417 cents at 8.46 GMT, according to Tradeweb data, while the 2027 issue was up 1.242 cents. Bonds were bid between 58.5 cent and 59.2 cents - still trading at distressed levels - but at their strongest in a month. There was no trading data available for the issue that matures in September 2022.

Russia's economic contraction will deepen in the third quarter of 2022, while its strong current account surplus, the key driver of the rouble's recent rebound, will shrink in the second half of this year, the central bank said on Monday, Reuters reported. Russia's export-dependent economy is plunging into recession after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, triggering sweeping financial and economic sanctions from the West.

Pakistan sees a way out of its current economic crisis without descending into default, thanks to progress on a stalled International Monetary Fund loan as well as spending cuts, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said, Bloomberg News reported. “With the commodity super cycle and Russia-Ukraine war, oil prices skyrocketing and gas going as high as ever been in history, Pakistan and other emerging countries have been facing the worst crisis,” he said in a phone interview.

Brazil posted a lower than expected trade surplus of $5.444 billion in July, official data showed on Monday, with growth in imports again strongly outpacing that of exports, Reuters reported. The figure came below the median forecast of a $6.993 billion surplus in a Reuters poll. Imports rose 41.6% in July over the same month last year, to $24.511 billion, the Economy Ministry said. Exports grew by 23%, to $29.955 billion, added the ministry, stressing that higher prices boosted the results in both cases.

Some holders of Ecuador's sovereign dollar-denominated bonds maturing in 2030, 2035 and 2040 have received interest payments which had been due on the securities on July 31, Reuters reported. A Luxembourg bailiff had ordered banks to freeze assets held by Ecuador at accounts in the country as a result of a dispute over a $391 million settlement award that Anglo-French oil company Perenco says remains unpaid, a document seen by Reuters show.