Puerto Rico would substantially reduce its core government debt load under a new deal announced on Tuesday, but obstacles remain for the U.S. territory’s exit from bankruptcy, Reuters reported. The island’s federally created financial oversight board said that its agreement with certain bondholders was a major step toward resolving the bankruptcy, which began in 2017 in an effort to restructure about $120 billion of debt and other liabilities, including unfunded pensions.
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Resources Per Country
- Anguilla
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Bermuda
- British Virgin Islands
- Canada
- Cayman Islands
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- El Salvador
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Jamaica
- Mexico
- Montserrat
- Netherlands Antilles
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Puerto Rico
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- United States
- United States Virgin Islands
Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced new tax benefits for Pemex as the beleaguered state oil company seeks to reverse long-term production declines and reduce debt, Bloomberg News reported. Petroleos Mexicanos will get an additional 14% credit stimulus to apply to the taxes it pays on hydrocarbons capped at 73.3 billion pesos ($3.6 billion) for this year, according to a presidential decree. The new benefit comes in addition to previous measures that reduced Pemex’s profit-sharing duty from 65%, to 58% in 2020 and 54% in 2021, respectively.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the U.S. will keep tariffs imposed on Chinese goods by the former Trump administration in place for now, but will evaluate how to proceed after a thorough review, Reuters reported. “For the moment, we have kept the tariffs in place that were put in by the Trump administration ... and we’ll evaluate going forward what we think is appropriate,” Yellen told the cable news network, adding that Washington expected Beijing to adhere to its commitments on trade.
Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced new tax benefits for Pemex as the beleaguered state oil company seeks to reverse long-term production declines and reduce debt, Bloomberg News reported. Petroleos Mexicanos will get an additional 14% credit stimulus to apply to the taxes it pays on hydrocarbons capped at 73.3 billion pesos ($3.6 billion) for this year, according to a presidential decree. The new benefit comes in addition to previous measures that reduced Pemex’s profit-sharing duty from 65%, to 58% in 2020 and 54% in 2021, respectively.
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Mexico is preparing a significant tax break for its state-owned oil firm while the constitution blocks it from taking on debt to increase social spending during the pandemic, Finance Minister Arturo Herrera said in an interview, Bloomberg News reported. Lowering the state’s demands on Pemex, its biggest taxpayer, could help the oil giant reorder its finances as it struggles with a $110.3 billion debt load, sinking production, and some of the highest tax obligations of any oil company in the world.
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More than 100 million workers across the world’s top eight economies may be forced to change occupations by 2030 due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report released by consultant firm McKinsey & Company on Thursday, The Hill reported. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated globally trending changes in the workplace, prompting McKinsey to raise its prediction for how many workers will likely need to switch jobs in the top eight economies by 12 percent.
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Brazil on Thursday ditched a trade complaint against Canada over aircraft subsidies and called for wider negotiations between all aircraft producing nations to halt a slide toward aircraft trade wars, sidestepping the World Trade Organization, Reuters reported. The abrupt move by Brazil, home to the world’s third largest planemaker Embraer, comes as larger rivals Airbus and Boeing remain locked in a 16-year-old fight at the WTO that led to tit-for-tat transatlantic tariffs.
The COVID pandemic has added $24 trillion to the global debt mountain over the last year a new study has shown, leaving it at a record $281 trillion and the worldwide debt-to-GDP ratio at over 355%, Reuters reported. The Institute of International Finance’s global debt monitor estimated government support programmes had accounted for half of the rise, while global firms, banks and households added $5.4 trillion, 3.9 trillion and $2.6 trillion respectively.
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Mexican airline Aeromexico, which is undergoing a chapter 11 restructuring process, on Tuesday posted a loss in the fourth quarter of last year, taking yet another hit from the coronavirus pandemic’s drain on global tourism, Reuters reported. The company reported a net loss of 9.72 billion pesos ($487 million) in the October to December period, with passenger capacity down nearly 48% from the same quarter a year earlier. It also reported losses in the first three quarters of 2020, including a slimmer loss of $130 million in the prior period.
Canada’s annual inflation rate accelerated more than expected in January, data from Statistics Canada showed on Wednesday, and could continue to rise in coming months compared with the low levels reached a year ago during the first COVID-19 lockdowns, Reuters reported. Canada’s inflation rate accelerated to 1.0% in January on higher durable good and gasoline prices, up from a year-on-year increase of 0.7% in December, and beating analyst expectations of 0.9%.