Headlines

India's central bank is expected to frontload more aggressive interest rate hikes in its effort to tame high inflation, at least until its repo rate hits its pre-COVID level of 5.15%, economists said after a long-anticipated rate hike on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Most economists are now forecasting a cumulative 125-150 basis points of rate hikes over the next 12 months, compared with about 50 basis points expected three months ago, on the grounds that inflation could remain around 7% for at least three months more due to soaring global energy, food, and manufacturing prices.

Colombia swapped internal public debt worth 2.6 trillion pesos ($641 million) in April, the second such operation this year and part of an effort to reduce amortizations and improve the country's debt profile, its finance ministry said on Thursday, Reuters reported. In the latest operation, the ministry traded TES securities coming due in 2023 for others tied to inflation which come due in 2035 and 2037 and peso-denominated paper coming due in 2042.

The Czech central bank lifted borrowing costs more than expected to the highest level since 1999 and signaled further monetary policy tightening to come as intensifying inflation pressure eclipses risks to economic growth, Bloomberg News reported. Policy makers on Thursday raised the benchmark rate by 75 basis points to 5.75% -- exceeding the forecasts of all analysts in a Bloomberg survey for a half-point move. The hike brings cumulative increases since June to 550 basis points.

Turkey's annual inflation jumped to a two-decade high of 69.97% in April, according to data on Thursday, fuelled by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and rising energy and commodity prices after last year's lira crash, Reuters reported. The surge in prices has badly strained households just over a year before presidential and parliamentary elections that could bring the curtain down on President Tayyip Erdogan's long rule.

Airlines face a slew of growing costs in the coming year including higher insurance, fuel, labour and lease rates, the chief executive of major aircraft lessor SMBC Aviation Capital said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Managing those will be the industry's biggest challenge in the next 12-24 months despite a rebound in demand, Peter Barrett told the Airfinance Journal conference in Dublin. "If I had to pick one topic that's going to be a challenge for the industry over the next 24 months, it will be the cost base and how elastic will demand be relative to that," Barrett said.

Lufthansa and its partner MSC have been looking at financial data opened up by state-owned ITA Airways to see if the Italian airline would make a good strategic acquisition, the German carrier's chief executive said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Prospective bidders for ITA Airways have had access to its finance data room for about 72 hours, Chief Executive Carsten Spohr told a news conference. The Italian government wants to clinch an ITA privatisation deal by mid-June, sources told Reuters in March.

China's central bank on Wednesday pledged monetary policy support to ensure ample liquidity, help businesses badly hit by the latest COVID-19 outbreak in the country and support a recovery in consumption, Reuters reported. The remarks came after a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party last week also vowed to support the economy. "(We shall) waste no time planning incremental policy tools to support steady economic growth, stabilise employment and prices ... to provide a fair monetary and financial environment," the People's Bank of China said in a statement on Wednesday.

Junior creditors of LATAM Airlines Group SA are challenging its proposed reorganization plan, saying it improperly benefits the carrier's existing shareholders, such as Delta Air Lines, at their expense, Reuters reported. Objections were filed on Monday in Manhattan bankruptcy court ahead of a May 17 hearing at which LATAM’s lawyers will ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Garrity to approve the proposal. The airline is seeking to raise $5.4 billion through its plan to exit chapter 11, which it filed two years ago as world travel halted amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

EU antitrust rules should be beefed up to allow regulators to break up companies for serious breaches, German State Secretary Sven Giegold said on Wednesday, urging EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager to consider this when reforming regulations, Reuters reported. Rules known as Regulation 1/2003, in force since 2004, have allowed Vestager to go after Alphabet unit Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Intel, and impose billions of euros in fines.

The number of people registering as jobless in Spain fell 2.77%in April to 3.02 million people, the lowest level since July 2019, as hirings sped up and took formal jobs to over 20 million for the first time ever, official data showed on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Most sectors added jobs in the month, and a strong recovery of the pandemic-ravaged tourism industry during the Easter holidays also contributed to the improvements in the labour market data, the Labour Ministry said.