Headlines

The European Central Bank kept policy unchanged as expected on Thursday, curbing stimulus over the coming months but maintaining plenty of support for the economy even after inflation unexpectedly hit a fresh record high, Reuters reported. After the ECB extended support measures only in December, policy change was not expected to be on the agenda. But stubbornly high inflation - which rose to 5.1% last month in the 19-country euro zone - is complicating life for the bank and ECB President Christine Lagarde will be under pressure to address the issue in her 1330 GMT news conference.

Britain should respect post-Brexit trade rules or else face consequences, a German official said on Thursday as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was "crazy" to have checks on goods heading from Britain only to Northern Ireland, Reuters reported. Tensions over the Northern Ireland protocol, signed as part of Britain's exit from the European Union, flared again after Belfast ordered an immediate halt on Wednesday on checks on agri-foods, earning a rebuke from Brussels.

Greece plans to repay more than 7 billion euros in loans from the International Monetary Fund and eurozone partners in the next two months, paying down the rest of the IMF funds it borrowed to prevent bankruptcy during the financial crisis, two officials said, Bloomberg News reported. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Thursday the Treasury would repay 1.8 billion euros ($2.03 billion) in IMF loans ahead of schedule, the last batch of a total 28 billion euros the lender provided in two bailouts between 2010 and 2014.

Tunisia hopes to reach a crucial deal with the International Monetary Fund in April, the finance minister said Wednesday, rejecting speculation that the nation faces imminent bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. “The situation is difficult,” Sihem Boughdiri Nemsia said in an interview with broadcaster Shems FM. “Authorities are trying to stabilize the economy,” she said. Concerns over insolvency are however “alarmist,” and authorities can afford to pay public-sector wages for the coming months.

Lenders to Future Retail, the company being fought over by Reliance Industries and Amazon.com Inc , have told India's Supreme Court that its assets should be put up for auction after it missed payments, Reuters reported. They also said they have started classifying loans to the country's second-largest retailer as non-performing and would have to make combined provisions of 80 billion-90 billion rupees ($1.1 billion-$1.2 billion) due to the non-payment.

The Czech central bank raised borrowing costs to the highest level in the European Union, delivering what’s probably its last large increase and outlining a relatively dovish outlook for the rest of the year. The koruna weakened. Policy makers raised the benchmark rate to 4.5% from 3.75% on Thursday, as predicted by a majority of economists in a Bloomberg survey. The move brought the cumulative rate hikes made since June to 4.25 percentage points, the boldest policy moves since the country began targeting inflation in 1998.

A real rate of minus 35% and little prospect of a rate hike by the Turkish central bank can only mean more losses for the beleaguered lira, Bloomberg News reported. Traders see a probability of almost 50% that the lira will surpass its record low of 18.3633 per dollar by the end of the year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on prices of put and call options. The currency slumped as much as 1.2% Thursday before paring its drop to trade at 13.5772 as of 2:08 p.m. in Istanbul.

Kenya Airways Plc has selected financial advisers at Seabury Securities to help the airline evaluate options to restructure its debt load, Bloomberg News reported. The airline, in which the Kenyan government has a 48.9% stake, faces mounting debts and depressed passenger demand amid pandemic-related travel restrictions. A representative for Kenya Airways said the carrier is in talks with several consultants, including Seabury, but declined to elaborate further. A representative for Seabury Securities declined to comment.

Inflation fed by high oil and gas prices hit record levels in Europe for the third month in a row, extending pain for consumers and sharpening questions about future moves by the European Central Bank, the Associated Press reported. The 19 countries that use the euro currency saw consumer prices increase by an annual 5.1% in January, the European Union statistics agency Eurostat reported Wednesday. The figure broke records of 5% in December and 4.9% in November and was the highest since recordkeeping started in 1997.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said on Wednesday there was uncertainty about how quickly inflation would come back down due to the unique nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has helped drive up prices, Reuters reported. Macklem, speaking to the Senate banking committee, reiterated that interest rates would have to start going up this year to tackle inflation, which is currently 4.8%, more than double the central bank's 2% target. "There is some uncertainty about how quickly inflation will come down because we've never experienced a pandemic like this before," he said.