COUNTRIES TAKE A BEATING

Canada’s GDP Takes Record Plunge. The country’s economic output fell 11.4 percent from March through April, a record month-to-month plunge, to C$1.63 trillion, or about U.S.$1.19 trillion, according to Statistics Canada. The nation’s GDP contracted 7.5 percent in March.
If annualized, the April figure represents the equivalent of a 40-percent GDP crash for the year.
Canada is showing signs of an economic rebound, but any recovery will be long, warned Tiff Macklem, Governor of the Bank of Canada.
53 Million May Fall Into Poverty. Latin America could see at least 53 million people fall back into poverty with incomes dropping below $5.50 a day, said Carlos Jaramillo, the World Bank’s VP for the region.
In late June, the bank predicted the region’s nations face a 9.4-percent economic contraction this year, a worse performance than Africa, Asia, or the Middle East.
Latin American nations’ economies depend largely on exporting crops and oil and have grown an average of 0.5 percent annually per capita over the ten years preceding the pandemic.
“Inequality is likely to rise in this period,” Jaramillo said.
IMF Says Africa Needs Sustained Aid. African nations must receive sustained aid to survive the effects of the global economic shutdown, said Christina Georgieva, president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The continent’s twin economic pillars of commodity exports and tourism have collapsed and foreign investment has vanished.
Africa’s GDP will contract 3.2 percent this year, the IMF has predicted.
U.K. to Hold $1Billion of Venezuela’s Gold. A U.K. court has denied Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro’s demand that Britain turn over $1 billion in gold held by the Bank of England, a common international depository for nations’ gold reserves.
The bank refused Maduro’s request, it said, because the British government has “unequivocally” recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president as a result of the last election, after which Maduro refused to surrender his office.
Maduro said he would sell the gold and route the proceeds to the U.N. Development Programme to fund COVID-related healthcare in his country. Guaidó alleged that Maduro’s government would steal the money.
Several countries have frozen Venezuela’s assets until Maduro leaves office. His government is pursuing legal cases in those countries to gain control of the assets.