For the first time since 2019, Canadian inflation stayed within the central bank’s target range for a full year, a mark of achievement for policymakers ahead of a potential tariff war that threatens to derail their progress, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index ended 2024 with a second consecutive monthly deceleration, rising 1.8% on a yearly basis in December, down from 1.9% previously, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists was for a 1.9% gain.

The most valuable startup in India’s history, a tech company with Silicon Valley cachet, a charismatic founder and visions of dominating the online-education business seemed sure to be one of the post-pandemic’s next big things. More importantly, Think & Learn Pvt — more widely known as Byju’s — was willing to pay handsomely to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars in the U.S. just as the world’s central banks were holding interest rates at next to nothing. So when JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley went to line up buyers for Byju’s debt in late 2021, orders poured in.

The Bank of Canada says the bar for using exceptional monetary policy tools like quantitative easing and extraordinary forward guidance “should remain very high,” after reviewing its response to the Covid-19 pandemic to inform how it reacts to future crises, Bloomberg News reported. In a suite of documents released Friday, the central bank offered a wide-ranging review of its handling of the economic shock brought on by the novel coronavirus in early 2020. The report comes as US President-elect Donald Trump threatens tariffs that would likely tip Canada into a recession if enacted.

Donald Trump kicked off a new era of Western economic rivalry with Beijing when he took office in 2017. As he prepares for his second term, China’s dominance of global manufacturing is greater than ever, the Wall Street Journal reported. China just posted a trade surplus with the rest of the world of almost $1 trillion for 2024, according to official data released this week.

Brazilian airline Gol released a revised five-year strategic plan on Wednesday as it prepares to exit chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, saying that the new forecasts would serve as a base for its reorganization, Reuters reported. Gol said in a securities filing that it expects to emerge from chapter 11 in May, and sees its net leverage "substantially improving" going forward as it rebuilds its network and returns to "normal levels" of core earnings by next year.

Any moves to pursue financial deregulation by the incoming U.S. administration would increase the risk of a financial crisis occurring one day, France's central bank governor warned on Wednesday, Reuters reported. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's return to office has raised the prospect of radical changes to the U.S. regulatory framework built up over decades to oversee financial services and banking, as well as digital currencies.

As Christmas holiday bills arrive, nearly half of surveyed British Columbians are "teetering on the edge of financial insolvency," with 31 per cent saying they're already unable to pay their bills, TodayinBC.com reported. These figures appear in the latest MNP Consumer Debt Index, which finds a "sharp increase" of nine per cent to 46 per cent among British Columbians, who are less than $200 from not being able to pay their bills and debt payments each month. This increase wipes out the nine percent improvement from the last report.

The question of who owns the European unit of Sam Bankman-Fried’s former crypto enterprise appeared to be settled: Dubai-based Backpack Exchange said that it had purchased FTX EU after months of wrangling, Bloomberg News reported. Backpack, a crypto trading platform founded by one-time employees of Bankman-Fried’s FTX and Alameda Research businesses, said the $32.7 million acquisition would expand its derivatives offerings in the region. But according to the US-based FTX estate, the ownership situation is less clear.

Several members of Mexico’s central bank expressed concern about the inflationary impact of tariffs that could be imposed by US President-elect Donald Trump after he takes office on Jan. 20, Bloomberg News reported. Members of the Banco de Mexico board said that the 25% tariffs that Trump pledged in November to impose on Mexico and Canada have created additional uncertainty for the economy, according to the minutes of the Dec. 19 monetary policy decision published Thursday. Despite the board’s willingness to forge ahead with cuts, tariffs and other factors led to notes of caution.