Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

Despite the political upset, Hong Kong will remain a key power center that will play a central role in opening China’s economy more widely to the world, Rachel Lord, investment company Blackrock’s new chief of Asia-Pacific operations, said in comments quoted by the Financial Times. Beijing imposed austere political restrictions on Hong Kong last year,...

As they struggle to trade goods with European businesses, British companies find themselves lost in a maze of unfamiliar regulations, expensive customs delays, and paperwork jumbles. No longer part of the European Union, Britain is suddenly a foreign country to Europe and must comply with the same procedures other nations are subject to. The snafus...

An average of €9.2 billion in stocks was traded in Amsterdam’s equities markets last month, a fourfold increase since December, the month before Britain left the European Union. The average daily value of London’s trades was €8.6 billion during the same period. Brexit cost London financial houses the right to handle transactions for European clients,...

The U.K.’s economy shrank 9.9 percent in 2020, according to the kingdom’s Office of National Statistics. The Bank of England said it was the nation’s worst performance in more than 300 years, beating the 9.7-percent contraction in 1921 following World War I. It also was the worst 2020 record among the Group of Seven advanced...

Germany’s central bank sees prices in the country rising more than 3 percent this year and will raise interest rates “if the price outlook requires it,” bank president Jens Weidmann said in an interview with the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper last week.  Monetary policy will remain “very expansionary” to cope with the economic shutdown’s aftermath, he...

Expecting an economic recovery to boost demand for everything from concrete to rare earth minerals, investors are bidding up prices ahead of an anticipated bull market in commodities. Investment managers are telling clients to buy in, with some seeing the chance of a new “supercycle,” a repeat of the early 2000s when China’s rapid industrialization...

During the week of 8 February, investors plowed a record $58 billion into stock funds around the world, including $36.3 billion in U.S. funds and $13.1 billion into a global bond fund, the Financial Times reported. Investors drained $10.6 billion from their cash accounts in making the purchases, the Times said. Tech-focused funds rode the...

Europe’s economy will grow 3.8 percent this year and next, the European Commission has predicted. The figure for 2021 is lower than the commission’s previous forecast, due to ongoing COVID lockdowns as well as a slower-than-expected vaccination campaign. However, the 3.8-percent growth projection for 2022 is higher than the commission’s earlier expectation. Spain’s and France’s...

January’s Food Price Index has risen 10 percent year on year, the highest level since July 2014, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) has announced. Grain prices led the increase, with China buying large amounts of U.S. corn during the last half of 2020. At the same time, American grain production fell due to...

Reversing five months of sinking prices, inflation shot from -0.3 percent in December to 0.9 percent in January, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. Reuters had foreseen only a 0.5-percent hike. Taking food and energy prices out of the calculation, prices gained even more, rising from -0.2 percent in December to 1.4 percent...