Headlines

Canada roped in banks to help cut funding to protesters against COVID-19 mandates this week, but the requested speed and broad scope of the measures leaves financial institutions to their own devices in enforcing most of them, industry-watchers said, Reuters reported. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday invoked the rarely used Emergencies Act, imposing sweeping measures that require banks to freeze accounts linked to the protest without court orders, ask insurers to suspend coverage on vehicles used in blockades, and bring crowdfunding platforms under terror financing oversight.

Argentina’s central bank plans to raise its benchmark interest rate by 250 basis points to 42.5% on Thursday, according to an official who asked not to be named since the announcement isn’t public yet, Reuters reported. The increase marks its second rate hike this year, further tightening monetary policy to align with goals set out in the government’s talks with the International Monetary Fund. IMF staff have called for interest rates in Argentina to exceed annual inflation running at 51% as part of a pending program to reschedule the government’s $40 billion of outstanding debt with the IMF.

Expected interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve put "limits" on Mexico's monetary policy, Bank of Mexico Deputy Governor Jonathan Heath said on Thursday at a business summit, Reuters reported. Due to the close relationship between the U.S. and Mexican economies, the Bank of Mexico's monetary policy decisions could not go counter to those of the Fed, he said. Heath said that Mexico is currently seeing low levels of private investment, hampering an economic recovery.

Many Sri Lankan voters who backed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s election bid three years ago are now struggling to make ends meet. His government is spending to ensure that support continues even as reserves and finances dwindle, Bloomberg News reported. That could lead to Colombo asking for more loans and aid from China and India given that the government has vowed to stay away from International Monetary Fund assistance that often comes with conditions for fiscal and monetary reform.

Turkey’s central bank left its key interest rate unchanged for a second consecutive month, pausing the government’s policy of interest-rate cuts that triggered a chaotic slide in the value of the lira last year, the Wall Street Journal reported. The bank’s monetary policy committee said Thursday it left the benchmark interest rate on hold at 14%, in line with market expectations. In a statement, the bank cited “increasing geopolitical risks” in a possible reference to the crisis over nearby Ukraine.

High numbers of bosses are “cashing out” of their businesses by liquidating companies when they are still solvent, business recovery experts have said, the Daily Echo reported. Portland Leonard Curtis paid out more than £26million in 2021 through members’ voluntary liquidations (MVL) of 76 businesses, including local firms and national brands.

L’Écocirque features all the awe-inspiring acts that audiences have come to expect under the big top—aerialists walking a tight rope, a juggler deftly keeping multiple pins in motion, and a burly man displaying incredible feats of strength. What makes it distinct is the innovative way it includes wild animals, despite widespread bans on their use in the circus. The trick? Instead of live animals, l’Écocirque employs holograms, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

British consumer prices rose at the fastest annual pace in nearly 30 years last month, intensifying the squeeze on households and reinforcing the chances that the Bank of England will raise interest rates for a third meeting in a row, Reuters reported. The annual rate of consumer price inflation rose to 5.5% in January, the highest since March 1992, when Britain was emerging from a long period of inflation-feeding high wage deals. This was above most economists' forecasts in a Reuters poll for it to hold at December's 5.4% rate.

A Chinese court has ordered the freezing of 640.4 million yuan ($101 million) in assets held by a subsidiary of China Evergrande Group, according to a filing by contractor Shanghai Construction Group, Reuters reported. State-owned Shanghai Construction, which sued the Evergrande unit in the southwestern city of Chengdu in December for overdue construction fees, cited the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court ruling that the assets to be frozen will include bank deposits and real estate.

China’s factory-gate inflation eased and consumer price growth slowed, giving Beijing room to stimulate growth at a time when more major economies are looking to tighten policy to curb rising prices, the Wall Street Journal reported. The producer-price index, a gauge of wholesale prices charged by manufacturers, rose 9.1% in January from a year earlier, down from December’s 10.3%, National Bureau of Statistics data published on Wednesday show. Softening coal and steel prices helped lead the index lower, said Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the bureau.