Vietnam's growing dominance as a furniture exporter is at risk as trade authorities in the U.S., its biggest market, probe the country's timber industry and its ties to illegal logging abroad, Nikkei Asia reported. The sector has boomed in recent years, thanks in part to former U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war with China, which saw tariffs as high as 25% slapped on Chinese furniture exports. Vietnam, in fact, overtook China last year in furniture exports to the U.S., shipping $7.4 billion worth of the goods, compared with China's $7.3 billion, reported Vietnam News Agency.

Canadian lawmakers on Wednesday passed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's budget bill, approving billions in funding to extend COVID-19 supports on the last day of voting before the summer break and a likely election in the fall, Reuters reported. Bill C-30 passed 211 to 121, as the opposition New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois supported the measure. Trudeau's ruling Liberals have a minority in the House of Commons and must rely other parties to pass legislation. The bill will only become law once the Senate, or upper chamber, adopts it and it receives royal assent.

Mexican airline Grupo Aeromexico said on Tuesday the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, presiding over its chapter 11 restructuring process, gave it 75 more days to present a reorganization plan, Reuters reported. “The court approved the extension because, among other reasons, of the good progress the company has made with its restructuring,” Aeromexico said. Read more.

Securities misconduct in Canada has risen sharply as perpetrators attempted to capitalize on pandemic-driven uncertainties, while social media frenzy surrounding certain stocks and cryptocurrencies also opened the door to more wrongdoing, regulators said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Future cooperation between Canadian miner Centerra Gold Inc. and Kyrgyzstan’s government in operating a gold mine in the Central Asian nation is unlikely, according to the nation’s finance minister, Bloomberg News reported. The government took over Kumtor mine late last month, using environmental concerns and tax issues to justify the move. It is now the subject of international arbitration initiated by Toronto-based Centerra, while the mine’s operating company Kumtor Gold filed for chapter 11 protection in New York on May 31.

The Canadian government will loosen Covid-19 travel restrictions for fully vaccinated people amid warnings that a return to a completely open border will take awhile longer, Bloomberg News reported. Canadian citizens and residents who’ve received two shots will be exempt from a 14-day quarantine on arrival to the country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government said in a statement Monday. Travelers will still need to show they’ve tested negative for Covid-19 before they cross into Canada and take a second test at the border.

The number of first-year students attending Laurentian University is expected to drop significantly this fall with many who applied and were accepted now getting cold feet, CTVNews.ca reported. Ken Steele, a Canadian expert in higher education, student recruitment and strategic planning, said statistics from the Ontario Universities' Application Centre show first-year enrolment confirmations are down 30 per cent at LU. That's significant because most of the students would have applied in January, before the university declared insolvency Feb. 1.

President Joe Biden’s administration rejected Nicolas Maduro’s call for relief from U.S. sanctions, saying the Venezuelan leader needs to do more toward restoring democracy before penalties would be lifted, Bloomberg News reported. Maduro, a target of crippling U.S. sanctions under former President Donald Trump, reached out to Biden in an exclusive Bloomberg interview last week, calling on him to lift sanctions, normalize relations and end the “demonization of Venezuela.” Responding to Maduro’s comments, a State Department spokesman said a U.S.

With fiscal spending booming and households flush with cash, investors are betting that the Bank of Canada's next tightening cycle, expected to begin in 2022, will result in interest rates climbing above the previous peak for the first time in decades, Reuters reported. In four major tightening cycles since the early 1990s, the Bank of Canada's key interest rate has peaked at a level that was lower than the preceding endpoint.