Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT – Feb 14 2023

As we reported in “Europe’s Largest Rare Earths Deposit Discovered” (24 Jan 2023), LKAB, Sweden’s government-owned mining company, has found a deposit of more than a million tons of rare earth minerals adjacent to its Kiruna iron ore mine in Lapland.

After seeing record profits in the first quarter of 2021, Danish shipping giant AP Moller Maersk warned that its earnings could dive by as much as 80 percent this year, as freight rates for shipping containers plunge amid the world economy’s slowdown.

Data shows that Canada’s pace of inflation is on its way down to the Bank of Canada’s 2-percent target, bank governor Tiff Macklem said in a 7 February public statement.

Home prices in Germany sank 1.8 percent in last year’s fourth quarter, compared to the quarter before, the Association of Pfandbrief Banks reported.

Germany’s inflation rate throttled back to 9.2 percent in January from 9.6 percent in December, the national statistics agency reported.

China’s official purchasing managers index (PMI) for manufacturing in January climbed to 50.1 last month from 47.0 in December and the service sector’s PMI rocketed up to 54.4 from 41.6 over the same period, according to the National Statistics Bureau.

The European Union (EU), Japan, the U.K., and U.S. are in discussions to form a “minerals security partnership” to ensure supplies of rare earths and other critical minerals independent of, and in competition with, China, Bloomberg reported.

Beginning 1 March, Russia will cut its oil production by 500,000 barrels a day, the Kremlin announced on 10 February.

This is week 28 of our reporting the long trend-line of layoffs that signal a further economic downturn in a country near you. Rising inflation and rising interest rate hikes are causing companies in many sectors to lay off employees.