Headlines

The main trucking lobbies in Canada and the United States are warning that vaccine and testing requirements for workers will further disrupt supply chains because there is already a dire shortage of drivers, Reuters reported. Canada will require vaccines for truck drivers starting in January, while the Biden administration has issued rules requiring truck drivers at companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. More than two-thirds of goods traded between Canada and the United States travels on roads and highways.

Uganda’s chief legal officer urged the Finance Ministry to refrain from renegotiating the terms of a $200 million Chinese loan as it is able to meet its debt obligations, Bloomberg News reported. The agreement signed in 2015 with the Export-Import Bank of China to fund the expansion of the Entebbe Airport came with several contentious clauses, including one that could see the lender take ownership of the facility in the event of a default.

The U.K.’s biggest business lobby cut its forecasts for growth this year and next as it warned rising costs and shortages are hampering the nation’s recovery, Bloomberg News reported. The Confederation of British Industry said Monday it now expects an expansion of 6.9% in 2021 and 5.1% in 2022, down from 8.2% and 6.1% previously. It expects U.K. business investment to lag behind other advanced economies, and sees it remaining 3% below its pre-Covid level by the end of 2023. The emergence of the omicron variant poses a further downside risk, it said.

The U.K. Treasury has appointed David Miles, a former Morgan Stanley economist and Bank of England rate-setter, to the government’s independent budget watchdog, Bloomberg News reported. Miles, who served on the BOE’s monetary policy committee from 2009 to 2015, will take over from Charles Bean, whose five-year term ends on Jan. 1. The OBR draws up the economic forecasts as well as borrowing and debt projections for the budget. The independent body was set up in 2010 to stop the Treasury fiddling the figures for political purpose.

Pakistan’s trade deficit is at a record, inflation is the fastest in Asia, and its stock market is among the worst in the world, adding pressure on authorities to take steps beyond the recent revival of a $6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg News reported. The first signs of concern emerged when the central bank advanced its review meeting last month and raised the key interest rate by a whopping 1.5 percentage points. The decision is pushing traders to pencil in another 1 percentage point jump for when the State Bank of Pakistan next meets Dec.

The Penang government in Malaysia has dismissed claims by its detractors that the state is heading towards bankruptcy, the New Straits Times reported. Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow, in allaying such fears during his winding up speech at the last day of the state legislative assembly sitting, said the state still has an accumulated reserve of RM1.82 billion as of last year and not RM888 million as stated by Lim Guan Eng.

The International Monetary Fund warned of “economic collapse” in some low-income countries unless creditors in the world’s richest nations suspend debt-service obligations and help renegotiate new terms, Bloomberg News reported. About 60% of the world’s poorest countries are at high risk or are already in debt distress, double the share in 2015, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, head of the fund’s strategy, policy, and review department, said in a blog post on Thursday.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday filed an application for initiation of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) against debt-ridden Reliance Capital at the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the Economic Times of India reported. The Reserve Bank had on November 29 superseded the board of Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Capital Ltd (RCL) in view of payment defaults and serious governance issues. The central bank had also appointed Nageswar Rao Y (former executive director, Bank of Maharashtra) as the administrator of the company.

Dutch energy company Anode Energy plans to file for bankruptcy, the company said on Wednesday, the third in the Netherlands this year to become insolvent due to high energy prices, Reuters reported. Director Eric van Teeffelen said that the company, which supplies around 14,000 retail customers, had been forced to make the decision after its energy supplier could no longer meet its obligations. "We were forced to purchase on the spot market -- hedged prices are no longer available -- and the current prices are much higher, we can't endure it," he said.

Avianca, one of Latin America’s largest airlines, is emerging from bankruptcy protection after winning court approval for its reorganization plan a year and a half after the Covid-19 pandemic decimated the region’s air carriers, Bloomberg News reported. Avianca, which is headquartered in Bogota, said it is exiting the restructuring process after raising fresh investments of $1.7 billion. It also comes out of bankruptcy with “significantly” reduced debt and more than $1 billion of liquidity, the company said in a regulatory filing.