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Japan's business mood improved for a fifth straight quarter in September with manufacturers perking up on robust global demand, a central bank survey showed on Friday, boding well for the next administration's bid to pull the economy out of the doldrums, Reuters reported. Steady progress in vaccinations and hopes of a re-opening in economic activity also helped lift non-manufacturers' mood, the survey showed, underscoring the Bank of Japan's view an end to state of emergency curbs will prop up consumption.
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The Czech central bank pledged to keep raising borrowing costs after lifting interest rates by the most in nearly a quarter century, pushing the koruna higher and angering the government with the European Union’s most aggressive anti-inflationary campaign, Bloomberg News reported. Policy makers increased the benchmark rate by 75 basis points to 1.5% on Thursday, exceeding expectations for a half-point increase.
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Global manufacturing activity took a big hit from supply chain bottlenecks and escalating costs, exacerbated by pandemic-induced factory shutdowns in Asia and signs of slowing Chinese growth, surveys showed on Friday, Reuters reported. While countries where outbreaks of the Delta coronavirus variant receded saw an improvement in activity, growth shrank in some as chip shortages and supply disruptions impacted those still struggling to shake off the hit from COVID-19.
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Brazil’s annual inflation has probably peaked in September and is now going to slow to policy makers’ 8.5% estimate by end-2021, according to central bank chief Roberto Campos Neto, Bloomberg News reported. “I think the high is going to be in September,” Campos Neto said at an event organized by Morgan Stanley on Friday, adding that prices tend to “accommodate” going forward. Brazil’s annual inflation surpassed 10% in mid-September for the first time since 2016 as fuel and food prices jumped. Brazil will publish September’s inflation data on Oct.
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Britain has temporarily exempted parts of the carbon dioxide (CO2) industry from competition law to help provide further security of the gas's supplies to businesses in the country, Reuters reported. Britain last week warned food producers to prepare for a 400% rise in carbon dioxide prices after extending emergency state support as rising costs of wholesale natural gas led to fears of poultry and meat shortages.
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Thailand plans to significantly increase the share of long-dated sovereign bonds to meet its financing needs as Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy continues to reel from the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Bonds will make up 48%-56% of the government’s borrowing of 2.3 trillion baht ($68.4 billion) in the fiscal year that began Friday, compared with 31% a year earlier, when it relied more on short-term securities such as promissory notes and treasury bills, said Patricia Mongkhonvanit, director general of the Public Debt Management Office.
China Evergrande Group missed paying bond interest due on Wednesday, two bondholders said, its second unpaid offshore debt obligation in a week, although the cash-strapped company on Thursday made a partial payment to some of its onshore investors, Reuters reported. The company, reeling under a debt pile of $305 billion, was due on Wednesday to make a $47.5 million bond interest payment on its 9.5% March 2024 dollar bond, after having missed $83.5 million in coupon payments last Thursday.
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The European Commission on Thursday proposed extending looser state aid rules for virus-hit companies for six months to June 2022 in a bid to slowly wean them off the billions of euros provided by governments across the European Union, Reuters reported. The EU executive, tasked with ensuring a level playing field in the 27-country bloc, also proposed two new measures to encourage investment support and solvency support for a limited time to help Europe rebound from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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LATAM Airlines Group, the region's largest carrier, said yesterday that it had secured additional financing of up to $750 million, a key step in a bankruptcy protection process the airline initiated in 2020, Reuters reported. LATAM filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. in May 2020 as world travel came to a halt amid the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, it was the world's largest airline to take such action due to COVID-19.
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After 18 months during which it subsidized 11.6 million jobs, Britain’s government-funded furlough program ended on Thursday, along with some other pandemic relief measures, the New York Times reported. While it marked another milestone in Britain’s efforts to put the pandemic in the past, the country is experiencing a slowing economic recovery and increasingly severe supply chain disruptions.
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