Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday defended the central bank as inflation spikes to a three-decade high and the frontrunner to take over the opposition Conservative Party pledges to fire the Bank of Canada governor if elected, Reuters reported. "It is clear to us all that we are living through a period of global volatility. We have COVID. We have the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We have China's zero-COVID policy," Freeland told reporters by teleconference from Munich, Germany after a G7 meeting.
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Resources Per Country
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- Barbados
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- Bermuda
- British Virgin Islands
- Canada
- Cayman Islands
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
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- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
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- Nicaragua
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- United States
- United States Virgin Islands
Business bankruptcies in Canada moved closer to pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2022, jumping almost 34 per cent year-over-year in what some experts warn could be the start of a growing wave of failures, the Niagra Falls Review reported. There were 807 business bankruptcies and proposals in Q1, up from 733 in the previous quarter and 603 in the first quarter of 2021.
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Air Canada sees higher-margin business travel coming "quite close" to pre-pandemic levels by as early as September, in the latest encouraging sign for the once hard-hit sector, a top executive told Reuters. Globally, business travel has lagged leisure in bouncing back from a COVID-19-induced slump, but airlines say it is now rebounding in North America as offices reopen and COVID restrictions ease. Corporate travel is important for airlines because of demand from frequent flyers and appetite for higher-margin premium fares.
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Before Bill Hwang sent a slate of stocks on a manic climb last year, he had already started bleeding billions of dollars on a bearish bet after seeking Morgan Stanley’s help, Bloomberg News reported. It’s an untold chapter that played out just before Hwang’s famously bullish trades came tumbling down in early 2021, wiping out his Archegos Capital Management and leading to criminal charges.
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Cuba´s ailing economy has begun to recover in some sectors after two years of pandemic-induced contraction but soaring global prices for food and fuel require "audacious" measures to tame inflation, economy minister Alejandro Gil told Cuban lawmakers on Saturday, Reuters reported. Gil said Cuba saw a 38% increase in exports in the first quarter, boosted by the rising price of nickel, a top mineral export. He said inflation had also slowed despite upward pressure on the price of imports. "We are beginning to see a clear and gradual recovery," Gil said.
The Bank of Canada's policy rate, at 1%, is "too stimulative" given soaring inflation and needs to return to more neutral levels "quickly," an official said on Thursday, while downplaying the likelihood of a supersized increase, Reuters reported. Deputy Governor Toni Gravelle, speaking to economists in Montreal, also said the central bank would likely revise up its near-term inflation projections, as the "perfect storm" of global and domestic price increases continue to persist.
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LATAM Airlines Group SA, the largest air transport group in Latin America, said on Wednesday that it garnered support from almost all of its creditors for a reorganization plan that the company is taking before a U.S. court, Reuters reported. The airline said that the agreement was presented to a Manhattan bankruptcy court that is handling its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, which it filed for in May 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its operations.
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As Russia faces another round of payments on its sovereign debt, Biden administration officials are weighing whether forcing Moscow into default for its invasion of Ukraine would really be the best outcome, Bloomberg News reported. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday that the matter is being “actively examined” before a crucial deadline in two weeks, and a decision will be made shortly.
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President Nayib Bukele’s Bitcoin gambit is becoming onerous for El Salvador, but that isn’t stopping him from adding to his stockpile, Bloomberg News reported. The impoverished Central American country has bought 2,301 Bitcoins since making it legal tender in September, based on Bukele’s announcements on Twitter, including yesterday’s 500-coin purchase as the price fell below $31,000. The tokens are worth $74 million now, well below the $103 million Bukele paid for them, according to calculations by Bloomberg.
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Canada’s labor market stalled even as the jobless rate fell to a new record low, hampered by a dearth of new workers, Bloomberg News reported. The economy added 15,300 jobs in April, Statistics Canada reported Friday in Ottawa, fewer than half the 40,000 gain anticipated by economists. The small increase ended a surge that saw Canada create about 410,000 jobs over the previous two months. The unemployment rate fell to 5.2% in April -- the lowest in data going back to 1976 -- as the economy failed to produce any new growth in the labor force.
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