For the past year, an assumption — sometimes explicit, often tacit — has informed almost all our thinking about the pandemic: At some point, it will be over, and then we’ll go “back to normal.” This premise is almost certainly wrong. SARS-CoV-2, protean and elusive as it is, may become our permanent enemy, like the flu but worse. And even ...

The Covid-19 pandemic and the extraordinary stimulus unleashed has re-written the role of central banks. Now that economic recovery is picking up, there’s a global tussle over the spoils and just how much power monetary authorities have to surrender. Battle lines draw little distinction among regions and whether an economy is emerging or developed, rich or poor. In New Zealand, ...

If at first you don’t succeed with an IPO, try again with a special purpose acquisition company. Having failed abysmally when trying to go public the traditional way in 2019, office-space provider WeWork Cos is reportedly in talks to merge with BowX Acquisition Corp and thereby join the stock market. A SPAC transaction has obvious appeal. Merging with a $480 ...

Remember last year’s kerfuffle over whether providers of business interruption insurance would have to pay when local Covid-19 rules forced proprietors to close? The verdict is now in … and it hasn’t gone well for business owners. In fact, according to the University of Pennsylvania Law School, which has developed a tool to track Covid-related litigation, the insurers have overwhelmingly ...

Bloomberg Southeast Asian countries lose out on as much as $6 billion a year as most of their single-use plastics are thrown out rather than recovered and recycled, the World Bank said in a new study. More than 75% of recyclable plastics in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines are left to waste, representing a “significant untapped business opportunity” in the ...

Bloomberg China’s local governments had 14.8 trillion yuan ($2.3 trillion) of hidden debt last year, and the figure could climb even further this year, according to a government-linked think tank. Local governments were under pressure to increase infrastructure investment and shore up growth through pandemic, leading to a 6% rise in off-budget borrowing from a recent low of 13.9 billion ...

Bloomberg India’s government is considering resuming fresh bankruptcy filings after the current suspension expires on March 25, people with knowledge of the matter said. The lifting of the halt would come even as a resurgence in virus cases threatens the nascent economic recovery. It could spark a wave of new insolvencies, pent up from last year when businesses were hurt ...

Bloomberg Singapore will relax workplace measures to allow more people to return to offices and permit larger gatherings for various activities, as the city-state gets its virus situation under control. At offices, the government’s stance will shift from working-from-home as a default to a more “flexible and hybrid way of working”, where up to 75% of staff can be at ...

Bloomberg Japan’s government and businesses are racing to bring a fire-damaged automotive chip plant back online, underscoring how important the component has become in a supply chain already under strain because of booming demand for semiconductors. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is mobilising to help Renesas Electronics Corp., one of the top providers of chips used in car ...

Bloomberg North Korea fired off a pair of cruise missiles on the heels of an Asian trip by top US officials, putting a fresh spotlight on Biden administration deliberations over how to resolve a key security dilemma. The two missiles were fired from South Pyongan province and flew over the sea between the peninsula and China, the South Korean Defense ...