Headlines

China Aoyuan Group Ltd. won’t make payments on four dollar bonds and said that will trigger defaults on all other offshore debt, becoming the latest Chinese developer to succumb to the industry’s liquidity crisis, Bloomberg News reported. The company won’t pay off a dollar note that matures Thursday or a separate bond due Sunday, it said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing late Wednesday. The notes have a combined $688 million of principal outstanding, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Ukraine's central bank raised its main interest rate to 10% from 9% on Thursday, crossing into double digits for the first time since April 2020, to try to tackle persistently high inflation and the economic fallout from a standoff with Russia, Reuters reported. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said it could hike rates again at its next policy meeting in March and signalled that monetary conditions would remain moderately tight. It would also increase banks' reserve requirements next month.

Turkey’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday, pausing a cycle of rate cuts and launching an “open-ended” policy review after inflation surged to its highest level since the beginning of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 19-year rule, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee, led by Governor Sahap Kavcioglu, held its one-week repo rate at 14% as forecast by all 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, in its first meeting since inflation hit a record 36.1%.

Inflation in the euro zone will decrease gradually over the year as its main drivers, such as surging energy prices and supply bottlenecks, are expected to ease, European Central Bank (ECB) head Christine Lagarde told France Inter radio, Reuters reported. "This will stabilise and ease gradually in the course of 2022," she said. Asked on her policy to counter price pressures, Lagarde reiterated that the ECB did not need to act as boldly as the U.S. Federal Reserve because of a different economic situation. "The cycle of the economic recovery in the U.S. is ahead of that in Europe.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to meet Thursday with the leader of El Salvador, the first country to make bitcoin legal tender, while the Turkish central bank kept interest rates on hold in a move that will likely do little to arrest the country’s currency crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported. With El Salvador planning to launch a $1 billion bitcoin-backed bond, Turks and foreign investors are watching closely to see if the meeting between Mr.

The United Kingdom is cracking down on “misleading” cryptocurrency advertising as more citizens get involved in the digital assets, The Hill reported. Finance Minister Rishi Sunak announced his plan on Tuesday to amend financial promotion legislation to include cryptocurrency. The finance minister said even though 2.3 million people in the U.K. own cryptocurrency, more than 3 percent of the population, understanding of the digital currency is declining.

Benchmark German bond yields fell for the first time in five sessions on Thursday as money markets slightly pulled back their bets on rate hikes this year, Reuters reported. Germany's 10-year yield, the benchmark for the euro area, had risen above 0% for the first time in nearly three years on Wednesday but was trading back in negative territory on Thursday. Money markets pared back bets on rate hikes from the European Central Bank this year slightly, pricing in a 80% chance of 10-basis point rate hike by September, down from a 100% chance on Wednesday.

Romelectro, the company that designed a large part of Romania's energy system during the communist regime and carried out projects abroad, mostly in the Middle East, is asking for insolvency, Romania-Insider.com. This happens precisely when the country needs the most engineering companies able to develop major projects in the energy generation sector, Ziarul Financiar daily comments.

China is drafting nationwide rules to make it easier for property developers to access funds from sales still held in escrow accounts in its latest move to ease a severe cash crunch in the sector, Reuters reported. Regulatory curbs on borrowing have driven the sector into crisis, highlighted by China Evergrande Group, which was once China's top-selling developer but is now the world's most indebted property firm with liabilities of $300 billion.

Investors who lost money from investing in Wirecard AG shares can’t make Germany’s financial regulator Bafin compensate them, a Frankfurt court ruled, Bloomberg News reported. The tribunal on Wednesday threw out four suits by shareholders who claimed they lost between 3,000 euros ($3,404) and 60,000 euros after the former payment company went bust in Germany’s biggest accounting scandal. Bafin isn’t liable to individuals even if the regulator made blunders, so they cannot sue, the court said in a statement.