The Canadian economy appeared to lose its strength toward the end of this year even as the central bank cut interest rates at a rapid pace, Bloomberg News reported. Advance data suggested gross domestic product shrank 0.1% in November, the first monthly contraction this year, after 0.3% expansion a month earlier, Statistics Canada said Monday. With October’s stronger-than-expected gain and November’s decline, the industry-based data point to the economy growing at a 1.7% annualized pace in the final quarter, assuming December growth is flat.

After complaints by billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego’s companies, prosecutors in Mexico have been seeking the arrest of family members associated with what was one of the country’s biggest shadow banks, Bloomberg News reported. Almudena Lebois, a former board member of Unifin Financiera SAB and daughter of the founder, was arrested late last week on charges of attempted fraud before a state of Mexico judge dismissed the case. Court records show the charges were sparked by allegations from a company owned by Salinas.

The Canadian Parliament passed legislation last week granting priority status to produce growers and shippers for unpaid product in the event that a buyer of their fruits and vegetables files for bankruptcy, the Produce News reported. The new law, Bill C-280, is similar to the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act trust amendment that was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1984. For the past 40 years, agricultural advocacy groups in Canada, as well as the United States, have been pushing for similar legislation with no success. In fact, in 2014 the U.S.

With year-end approaching, two iconic mountain bike brands are making big moves to stay afloat in a difficult market, SingleTracks.com reported. Yesterday, Rocky Mountain announced in a press release that it has filed for protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in Canada in order “to avoid business interruption as much as possible.” “Despite strong demand for its bikes during the pandemic, the Company struggled to secure supplies due to shortages and rising costs,” according to the release.

Mexico cut interest rates for a fourth straight meeting Thursday as inflation is slowing back to target and the economy is losing momentum, Bloomberg News reported. Banxico, as the central bank is known, lowered borrowing costs by a quarter-point to 10% in an unanimous decision. The move was forecast by 21 of 29 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The remaining eight predicted that the bank would accelerate the pace of easing with a half-point cut.

El Salvador reached a deal with the International Monetary Fund after four years of negotiations that were strained by the country’s adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender, Bloomberg News reported. The Central American nation and the Washington-based lender agreed on a $1.4 billion loan program to be disbursed over 40 months, according to a statement by the IMF. In exchange, El Salvador had agreed to adopt measures that will improve its primary balance and help cut its debt-to-GDP ratio.

An organization that works to document what happened at a notorious residential school says it’s at risk of going bankrupt by the end of the month unless Canada makes a decision on whether it will fund the group’s work, the Canadian Press reported. The Survivors’ Secretariat, which works to uncover the truth about what happened at the Mohawk Institute, a residential school that operated in Brantford, Ont., also says the ministry of Crown-Indigenous relations is letting down survivors with the delays in processing its applications.

Price pressures in Canada unexpectedly eased in November even as core measures of consumer inflation remained sticky, leaving the door open to further interest-rate cuts in the new year but backing the central bank’s shift to a more measured approach, the Wall Street Journal reported. The consumer price index was unchanged last month, where economists expected a 0.1% advance after an acceleration to 0.4% growth the month before, Statistics Canada said Tuesday. That left annual inflation to cool slightly to 1.9% from 2% in October, where economists had expected it to remain.