Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

Lockdowns in major Chinese cities including Shanghai, its most populous and home to the world’s busiest port, has crippled transportation and logistics across the country and Beijing’s “zero-tolerance” COVID policy continues to wreak havoc on the nation’s economy. At least 200 million people in 23 cities are under full or partial quarantine, according to Japanese...

China’s service sector grew by 33.5 percent in January and February this year, the country’s commerce ministry reported, turning in a value equivalent to $146.6 billion. Service exports were up 39.4 percent, year on year, with service imports rising 28.3 percent, yielding a 57.6-percent drop in China’s trade deficit in services compared to 2021, the...

The Chinese government has published a set of general guidelines intended to outline the shape and structure of what it calls a “unified domestic market that is highly efficient, rules-based, fair for competition, and open” the state-controlled Xinhua news service reported. The goals include “the efficient circulation and expansion of the domestic market, a stable,...

Japan has joined G7 and the European Union in barring imports of Russian coal, prime minister Fumio Kishida announced on 8 April. Japan will focus on expanding its use of renewable and nuclear power to offset the loss, he said. Last year, Japan imported more coal than any country other than China and India. Russia...

On 8 April, the European Union (EU) blacklisted four Russian banks already barred from using the SWIFT international payments system, including VTB, Russia’s second largest bank, which had already been sanctioned by the U.K. and U.S. Russian vodka, coal, and caviar have been banned, along with an array of other products. The sanctions also have...

The 31 member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) have agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil in addition to the 180 million the U.S. plans to release from its strategic reserve over the next six months, IEA director Fatih Birol announced.  “More details of specific contributions [by individual countries] will be made...

Ukraine accounts for 47 percent of the world’s exports of sunflower oil, a common cooking oil in developing nations and a staple ingredient in processed foods from bread to mayonnaise because of its mild flavor. Russia’s invasion has halted those exports, pushing consumers to grab alternatives and sending all kinds of cooking oils to record...

Europe imports about 40 percent of its gas, and Germany 55 percent, from Russia. If those deliveries were to stop—either by Western sanction or by Russia’s decision—there is not enough extra gas to be found elsewhere in the world to replace it. Finding replacements for Russia’s gas is “impossible,” chief gas researcher Giles Farrer at...

Western sanctions against Russia could reduce the dollar’s dominance by allowing countries to become used to paying for imports using other currencies, Gita Gopinath, the International Monetary Fund’s first deputy managing director, said in a Financial Times interview. “The dollar would remain the major global currency even in that landscape,” she said, “but fragmentation at...

The world’s fertilizer industry is imploding. Together, Russia and its neighbor Belarus—now coming under Western sanctions—export about 40 percent of the world’s supply of potash, 95 percent of which is used to make fertilizer. Russia also delivers 11 percent of the world’s urea and 48 percent of the globe’s ammonium nitrate, both also key elements...