Headlines

Canada is concerned about the challenges facing global supply chains and is watching the country's ports very closely, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Freeland, speaking to reporters in Washington after meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, said she was broadly optimistic about the strength of Canada's economic recovery from COVID-19.

Two of the Bank of England’s policy makers signaled they’re in no rush to raise interest rates, the first signs of a push back against market expectations for a move by the end of the year, Bloomberg News reported. Catherine Mann said she “can wait” before raising rates because markets have already tightened financial conditions. That was hours after Silvana Tenreyro, considered to be one the BOE’s most dovish policy makers, warned against a “self-defeating” hike to contain temporary inflation pressures.

Britain said that Brexit minister David Frost would meet with European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic in Brussels on Friday to see if a "substantial gap" between the two sides over the transit of goods to Northern Ireland can be bridged, Reuters reported. A British government spokesperson welcomed the "considerable effort" made by the EU to address issues with the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol but said "a substantial gap" remained between the two sides. "Both we and the EU now have proposals on the table.

Oppositional lawmakers in Chile are moving to oust President Sebastian Pinera after the Pandora Papers revealed his involvement in an ethically dubious offshore business deal, The Hill reported. The Chilean president had been “compromising the Nation’s honor and infringing the constitution and the country’s laws,” 17 lawmakers alleged on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. The move from opposition lawmakers comes amid popular protests against Pinera's government that have surged after the president showed up in the massive leak of financial documents.

Tunisia is participating in the International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings, but there are no imminent visits planned by the lender to the North African country, a central bank official said, a day after a state-owned TV channel reported a delegation was due, Bloomberg News reported. Reporting Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva’s Wednesday comments on Tunisia’s troubled economy, Wataniya 1 said they came “on the eve of the visit of a delegation from the International Monetary Fund to Tunisia on a week-long mission to discuss the possibilities of resuming negotiations” on assistance.

China faces tough trade-offs in dealing with the fallout from the financial troubles at property developer China Evergrande Group, the International Monetary Fund said, Bloomberg News reported. On the one hand, the country risks being seen as backing off from its economic deleveraging drive if it provides too much support to Evergrande and other affected companies, the Washington, D.C.-based lender said Tuesday in its semi-annual Financial Stability Report. On the other hand, it could spur more stress if it puts off arranging backing for the financial system.

Shenzhen-based Baoneng Investment Group missed repayments on yet another debt to finance its unrealized automaking dream, underscoring the deepening capital crunch of the once-highflying private conglomerate, Nikkei Asia reported. Baoneng Motors Group, the auto unit of Baoneng, failed to pay interest on a 2.8 billion yuan ($434 million) trust loan to finance a new-energy vehicle (NEV) industrial park project in Guangzhou, state-backed China Railway Trust disclosed. Baoneng and its controlling shareholder, Yao Zhenhua, offered guarantees for the product.

Canadian business leaders are calling on the federal government to extend COVID-19 benefits for small business and food service operators, saying moving ahead with plans to end the wage and rent subsidies on Oct. 23 will pull the safety net out from under struggling business owners, the Financial Post reported. In a letter shared with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, the Canada Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) urged the federal government to extend benefits such as the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) and Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) to Nov. 20.

The United Arab Emirates approved its federal budget to 2026 and focused most of next year’s spending on social benefits and development, Bloomberg News reported. The Gulf country approved a total of 58.9 billion dirhams ($16 billion) of spending in 2022, nearly the same as last year. Most of the spending is going to development and social benefits, according to the state-run WAM news agency. Nearly 16% will go to higher education, 6% to social affairs, 8.4% to the health sector and 3.8% to infrastructure and economic resources.