Headlines

Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Tuesday the damage to the economy from a weakening yen at present is greater than the benefits accruing to it, making the most explicit warning yet against the currency's recent slump versus the dollar, Reuters reported. The yen's fall has worsened imported inflationary pressures in Japan amid a spike in global commodity and oil costs, and an increase in supply snags, which have intensified in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.

Japan is in the midst of en masse hiring season, when a wave of college graduates join companies in formal ceremonies after sweating through the job-interview gantlet. While this year’s ritual has a different look, with Covid-19 forcing many companies to scale back or go online, the goal has long been the same: to kick off what was often a lifetime devoted to one company, the New York Times reported.

A senior Taiwanese minister has pressed U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to include the island in the United States' forthcoming Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, his office said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Tai last month declined to say if Taiwan would be invited to join the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific economic plan, spurring Senate criticism that excluding the island would be a missed opportunity.

Mexico’s congress dealt a major setback to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador late Sunday in his bid for state control over the country’s energy sector, a priority of his nationalist agenda, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mexico’s lower house rejected constitutional amendments proposed by Mr. López Obrador to give the country’s state-owned power company control over the electricity industry in a 275-223 vote, short of the two-thirds majority needed to change Mexico’s constitution. All opposition parties voted against the bill, while Mr.

More than 40 crypto business leaders have asked the European Union not to require crypto firms to disclose transaction details and dial down attempts to bring to heel rapidly growing decentralised finance platforms, Reuters reported. The European Union, like countries and jurisdictions across the globe, is working to tame the freewheeling crypto sector. The EU is ahead of the United States and Britain in developing a set of rules for the $2.1 trillion sector.

A new redundancy payment scheme for Irish workers laid off because of Covid-19 health restrictions has opened for applications, the Irish Times reported. The Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Act 2022 will allow workers who were made redundant due to public-health restrictions between March 13th, 2020, and January 31st, 2022, to apply for the payment, which will be up to €2,268 tax-free. Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that the scheme means that workers made redundant “to protect public health during the pandemic will not be out of pocket for the period they were laid off”.

Creditors of Brazilian miner Samarco Mineracao SA, a joint venture of Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd, on Monday rejected the debt restructuring plan presented by the company in an online creditors assembly, Reuters reported. Creditors are expected to present an alternative plan for the debt restructuring within 30 days. Representatives of 99.3% of unsecured credits rejected the plan, while smaller creditors in different classes voted favorable to the company's plan.

China reported its biggest decline in consumer spending and worst unemployment rate since the early months of the pandemic as Covid lockdowns put a strain on the world’s second-largest economy, adding another threat to global growth, Bloomberg News reported. The figures for March came alongside a stronger-than-expected acceleration in gross domestic product growth in the first quarter to 4.8%, an outcome that doesn’t capture the full extent of the economic damage from Covid lockdowns in financial and trade hub Shanghai and other places from the middle of last month.

China will step up financial support for industries, firms and people affected by COVID-19 outbreaks, the central bank said on Monday, as part of steps to cushion economic slowdown, Reuters reported. Authorities will guide financial institutions to expand lending and surrender profits to the real economy, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement on its website. Financial institutions should flexibly support COVID-affected individuals by reasonably delaying loan repayments and overdue loans may not be recorded, the central bank banks.

Russia on Monday flagged a likely further cut in interest rates and more budget spending to help the economy adapt to biting western sanctions as it heads for its deepest contraction since 1994, Reuters reported. Russia faces soaring inflation and capital flight while grappling with a possible debt default after the West imposed unprecedented sanctions to punish President Vladimir Putin for sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. Putin said on Monday that Russia should use its state budget to support the economy and liquidity when lending activity has waned.