Category Archives: Global economy

James Cleverly in Japan for G7 as UK tilts towards Pacific post-Brexit

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Foreign secretary says ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ is ‘critical to UK’ and releases manga-style cartoons to mark his visit

James Cleverly has arrived in Japan for a G7 foreign ministers’ summit to promote a “free and open” Indo-Pacific, as the UK government steps up its focus on the region after Brexit.

The foreign secretary and his counterparts from countries including the US and France will hold high-level talks on closer security and defence ties in the face of China’s growing assertiveness in the Pacific.

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Macron arrives in China hoping to talk Xi into changing stance on Ukraine

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French leader sees Beijing as possible ‘gamechanger’ and will also discuss European trade on three-day visit

Emmanuel Macron has arrived in China for a three-day state visit during which he hopes to dissuade Xi Jinping from supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while also developing European trade ties with Beijing.

Shortly after arriving in the Chinese capital, Macron said he wanted to push back against the idea that there was an “inescapable spiral of mounting tensions” between China and the west.

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Pacific trade deal is more useful to Joe Biden than it is to the UK’s economy

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Hailed by Tory MPs as a Brexit benefit, CPTPP membership actually turns the UK into a willing pawn in Washington’s geopolitical game

Tory MPs hailed the UK’s entry last week into the Indo-Pacific trading bloc as a major step on the road to re-establishing Britain as a pioneer of free trade.

It was a coup for Rishi Sunak, said David Jones, the deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Tory Eurosceptics, who was excited to be aligned with “some of the most dynamic economies in the world”.

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China spent $240bn on belt and road bailouts from 2008 to 2021, study finds

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Rise in emergency financing for other countries since 2016 correlates with drop in infrastructure lending

China spent $240bn (£195bn) bailing out countries struggling under their belt and road initiative debts between 2008 and 2021, new data shows.

Research found that Chinese state-backed lenders released bailout funds to 22 countries, including Argentina, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. Almost 80% of the emergency rescue lending was issued after 2016, reaching more than $40bn in 2021.

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UK and US shares climb as banks and ministers aim to calm Credit Suisse fears

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FTSE 100 rises and European banking shares are up after early jitters over what UBS takeover deal means for bondholders

Stocks climbed on Monday in London and New York after central bankers and politicians sought to soothe jitters triggered by the emergency rescue of Credit Suisse during the weekend.

Central banks in the UK and eurozone issued statements aimed at reassuring investors that – unlike the controversial approach taken by the Swiss authorities in the Credit Suisse deal – their jurisdictions would follow a hierarchy in which equity holders would lose out before bond holders.

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New Brexit trading rules could take more than two years to bed in fully

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No 10 says UK is giving firms in Northern Ireland time to prepare with phased introduction

The new Brexit trading arrangements in Rishi Sunak’s revised Northern Ireland protocol could take more than two years to be fully implemented, government sources have confirmed.

Businesses in Northern Ireland say they expect a mass educational campaign to be launched across the country by HMRC and other government departments to help them put the deal announced in Windsor last Monday into operation if it is approved by parliament.

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Pakistan’s fresh £580m loan from China intensifies debt burden fears

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Loan is on top of £25bn that cash-strapped Islamabad already owes Beijing and Chinese commercial banks

China has agreed to loan Pakistan $700m (£580m) to help it weather its worst economic crisis in a generation, in a development that will intensify concern among western countries about cash-strapped Islamabad’s debt burden to Beijing.

The loan comes on top of $30bn (£25bn) that Pakistan already owes China and Chinese commercial banks. Securing the financing will help to unlock bailout cash from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

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FTSE 100 hits fresh all-time high as inflation and recession fears ease

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Index rises to 7934.30, pushing it above previous record set on 3 February

The UK’s blue-chip shares index has hit a fresh all-time high, only days after a previous record was set last Friday.

The FTSE 100 index rose by almost 1% on Wednesday morning to hit 7934.30 points, surpassing the former high of 7,906.58 points set on 3 February.

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UK will be 15 years late in hitting £1tn annual export target, figures show

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Exclusive: Forecasts predict exports will fall to £707bn next year and target will not be reached until 2035

Ministers have been accused of leaving a “record of failure and broken promises” as internal forecasts show Britain will be 15 years late in achieving its £1tn annual export target after being hit by Brexit.

Projections from the Department for International Trade (DIT) show the value of UK exports will not reach £1tn until 2035, based on current trends, with the total due to fall to £707bn next year.

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World Bank walking tightrope as it mulls increased lending to poorest

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Campaigners say bank should rush to rescue countries facing recession – but can it do so without resulting in mass debt write-offs?

Not since the early 1990s has the world faced such a period of low growth.

Discounting the havoc caused by the financial crash of 2008 and the initial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank says that by the end of 2024 it will have been 30 years since the global economy grew at an average of less than 2% a year.

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Hedge funds holding up vital debt relief for crisis-hit Sri Lanka, warn economists

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Exclusive: 182 experts say only debt cancellation offers chance of recovery but private investors are playing hardball

Some of the world’s most powerful hedge funds and other investors are holding up vital help for crisis-hit Sri Lanka by their hardline stance in debt-relief negotiations after the Asian country’s $51bn (£42bn) default last year, according to 182 economists and development experts from around the world.

In a statement released to the Guardian on Sunday, the group said extensive debt cancellation was needed to give the economy a chance of recovery and that Sri Lanka would be a test case of the willingness of the international community to tackle a looming global debt crisis.

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Indian leather companies accused of enabling Russia’s war effort

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Soldiers’ boots are made from imported Indian leather as country’s trade with Russia soars by 400%

Indian companies have been accused of enabling Russia’s war effort after exporting leather to Russian companies that make boots for its military in the months since the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia and India have longstanding ties and Narendra Modi’s government has not joined western countries in openly criticising Moscow over the war nor stopped Indian companies trading with Russia.

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China’s move to ease Covid travel restrictions lifts hopes for global economy

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Analysts says lifting of many rules may soften impact of higher interest rates and unblock supply chains in 2023

China’s decision to ease rules on travel in and out of the country, the world’s second-largest economy, has offered investors hope that it could soften the toll from higher interest rates on global stock markets and unblock supply chains amid a dark outlook for 2023.

Chinese authorities said late on Monday that inbound travellers would not have to quarantine on arrival, from 8 January onward. The announcement marked the latest in a series of steps to reopen the country, which is home to vital global supply chains and 1.4 billion people.

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Watchdog reprimands Tories over £800bn post-Brexit trade deals claim

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Figure includes agreements rolled over from before leaving EU, and description of ‘new trade’ is misleading says UKSA chief

The official statistics watchdog has reprimanded the Conservatives for claiming the UK had secured £800bn in “new free trade deals” since leaving the EU, saying the figure includes deals rolled over from before Brexit.

The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) said it had written to the Tories about the infographic, shared last month by Michael Gove among others, also warning that the party should provide sources for such figures in the future.

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New York and Singapore top the list of world’s most expensive cities in 2022

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Sydney sneaks into Top 10 as rising energy prices send inflation soaring globally, Economist Intelligence Unit survey finds

New York was the world’s most expensive metropolis in 2022, sharing the unwanted title with Singapore, as soaring energy prices doubled the inflation rate across the major global cities, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual survey.

Last year’s leader Tel Aviv dropped to third, while Sydney snuck into the Top 10 and Moscow and St Petersberg in Russia scaled the rankings by as much as 88 places as sanctions and buoyant oil prices propelled prices higher, the EIU’s Worldwide Cost of Living report found.

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Covid’s still a big issue for China – and that’s trouble for global economy

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The economic outlook for China is not good however its leaders respond to anti-lockdown protests

For much of the world there has been hope for some time that the worst economic shocks from the Covid pandemic are in the rearview mirror. In China, however, there are important reminders that risks to the world economy still remain.

Three years since the virus first spread, protests in several Chinese cities against the Beijing government’s strict zero-Covid policies have reignited concerns in financial markets over the economic costs of the pandemic. Global oil prices have fallen back, while the Chinese yuan and stock markets across Asia have taken a hammering.

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UK to be second weakest performer of world’s big economies next year – OECD

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Most countries’ forecasts cut as Ukraine war prompts ‘largest energy crisis since the 1970s’

The UK will be the second weakest performer of the world’s big economies next year as the global economy continues to suffer the knock-on effects of the biggest energy shock in four decades, a leading international institution has warned.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said only Russia of the members of the G20 group of leading developed and developing nations would suffer a bigger contraction than Britain in 2023.

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G20’s dysfunctional family show little sign of working together in a crisis

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Communique unlikely to stretch beyond usual platitudes despite the need for a global plan for recovery

The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, was struck down by Covid, the Argentinian prime minister, Alberto Fernández, had gastroenteritis and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, either did or did not have chest pains that sent him to hospital. Given that Indonesia’s G20 slogan plastered all around Bali says: “Recover Together, Recover Stronger”, it was not an auspicious performance by the world’s leaders.

Unfortunately, there is precious little sign of recovery at the G20, either at a political or economic level.

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Climate-focused reform of World Bank could be done in a year, says Al Gore

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Former US vice-president says bank should refocus its spending and end its role in ‘fossil fuel colonialism’

Fundamental reform of the World Bank could be completed within a year, to refocus its spending on the climate crisis and end its contribution to “fossil fuel colonialism”, according to the former US vice-president Al Gore.

“I don’t know why it need take longer than a year,” said Gore, a longtime campaigner on the climate crisis since leaving politics, in an interview with the Guardian at the Cop27 UN climate summit. “We have an emergency on our hands.”

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We need to talk about Xi Jinping: G7’s discord over powerful trading partner

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Disagreements have opened up about strategy when China is also seen as an existential threat

Western powers in the G7 group of nations are failing to coordinate their China strategies, senior western officials admit, adding that the need to do so has been given sharp impetus by Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power at this month’s Communist party congress.

The G7’s poor coordination reflects a deep disagreement, also reflected within the EU, about whether dialogue and trade with China have a future if Beijing is seen as an existential threat that requires strict strategic controls on economic ties.

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