Headlines

Some European property reinsurance rates rose by more than 50% at Jan. 1 renewals after the region suffered record insured losses last year from natural catastrophes such as floods and storms, a report by broker Gallagher Re showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Reinsurers insure the insurers, and reinsurance rate rises are often passed onto insurers' customers.

German retail sales rose unexpectedly in November, data showed on Tuesday, lifting them to a record annual high despite renewed COVID-19 restrictions which held back a consumer-led recovery in Europe's largest economy, Reuters reported. The Federal Statistics Office said retail sales were up 0.6% on the month in real terms. That beat a Reuters forecast of a fall of 0.5%. For 2021, retail sales rose 0.9% in real terms and 3.1% in nominal terms, reaching record highs despite curbs on non-essential visits to the shops.

German unemployment fell more than expected in December, data showed on Tuesday, in a further sign that the labour market in Europe's largest economy remains resilient despite rising COVID-19 infections, Reuters reported. The Labour Office said the number of people out of work fell by 23,000 in seasonally adjusted terms to 2.405 million. A Reuters poll had forecast a fall of 15,000. "The labor market developed well at the end of the year. The recovery of the previous months continued," Labour Office head Detlef Scheele said.

When V. Rajapandian was pushed out of his job at a heat treatment plant in India, the reason had nothing to do with performance or falling revenue. Instead, his boss offered a peculiar explanation: After Rajapandian defaulted on a loan from a mobile app, recovery agents demanded the plant pay on his behalf, Bloomberg News reported. “I lost my job because of them,” Rajapandian said of CASHe, the app he used to secure a $132 loan.

Poland may decide to introduce new restrictions if cases of new coronavirus infections continue to grow, Polish health minister Adam Niedzielski told radio station RMF FM on Monday, as the country prepares for the spread of the Omicron variant, Reuters reported. Poland has been dealing with persistently high daily case numbers in a fourth wave that forced authorities to tighten restrictions in December.

Lebanon’s currency hit a new low Tuesday reaching 20 times its value on the black market since the economic meltdown began in late 2019 and likely throwing more people into poverty, the Associated Press reported. The pound was trading at 30,000 to 1 U.S. dollar on the black market as the economic crisis continues with no solution expected in the near future. The Lebanese currency was pegged at 1,500 pounds to the dollar for 22 years until decades of corruption and mismanagement led to the country’s worst economic crisis in its modern history starting in October 2019.

Restaurateur Jay Bourke faces a battle to get court approval for a massive debt write-off, after a creditor owed €12.2m lodged an objection to the proposal, the Sunday World reported. Mr. Bourke has debts totaling €13.7m, and it emerged in November he intended to ask the High Court to sanction a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) that would wipe out around €12.5m of what he owes and allow him to keep his €1.4m family home in Rathmines, south Dublin.

Trading in the shares of the indebted property developer China Evergrande Group were suspended on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday morning as the company raced to deliver apartments to millions of home buyers and raise cash to manage its $300 billion in debt, the New York Times reported. Evergrande said in a filing that its shares were halted pending an announcement “containing inside information,” without giving more details. The company had halted its shares once before, in October, as it tried to finalize the sale of a $2.6 billion stake in its property management unit.

A former member of the Committee of Public Accounts (PAC), the Dáil’s State spending watchdog, has asked it to investigate the payment of taxpayer-funded Covid supports to businesses that subsequently distributed cash to shareholders in the form of dividends, the Irish Times reported.

Activity in South Korea's factories expanded at the fastest pace in three months in December but the economy struggled to gather momentum as rising global coronavirus cases and continued supply constraint weighed on production and overseas demand, Reuters reported. The IHS Markit purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the final month of the year rose to 51.9 from 50.9 in November, remaining above the 50 threshold that indicates expansion in activity for a 15th consecutive month.