International News

  Bloomberg Poland expects to obtain a first tranche of European Union aid in the second half of this year, Premier Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday. A bill that promises to give the government access to €35.4 billion ($38.3 billion) in post-pandemic funding cleared its first hurdle on Friday after the ruling party secured a majority in parliament to push ...

  Bloomberg UK Transport Secretary Mark Harper has given rail companies permission to make a new offer to unions this week in a bid to ending strikes. A “revised mandate” had been given to rail companies to go into negotiations in the coming days and it’s important to give the two sides space “to try and reach a conclusion,” Harper ...

Bloomberg High inflation, rising interest rates and increased economic uncertainty may be telegraphing a further slowdown in US new household formation during the closing months of 2022. A slowdown in home sales due to high mortgage rates, coupled with the latest figures from RealPage Market Analytics that show a sharp decline in apartment demand — the first since 2009 — ...

  Bloomberg China’s imports of integrated circuits declined in 2022 for the first time in almost two decades. Imports of ICs fell 15% last year to 538.4 billion units from 635.6 billion units in 2021, according to data from General Administration of Customs released Friday. That’s the first annual drop since at least 2004 when Bloomberg started tracking the data. ...

Bloomberg Germany wants to force its power-hungry data centers to harness excess heat for warming residential homes — an effort which the industry warns is likely to fall flat. The country has become one of the largest global hubs for data centers thanks to its clear data protection and security laws. Politicians are now trying to re-purpose some of their ...

Bloomberg The UK economy may avoid tumbling into recession until later this year as consumers kept spending through the worst cost-of-living squeeze in memory. Gross domestic product unexpectedly rose 0.1% in November, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. Economists had expected a small decline after growth in October. November’s figures mean the UK economy probably avoided a recession in ...

  Bloomberg Britain’s trade deficit narrowed sharply after a slump in natural gas prices reduced import costs and a flurry of exports of aircraft and cars. The deficit in goods and services trade fell by £6.5 billion to £20.2 billion in the three months to November. Exports to the European Union were hit again in the wake of Britain’s exit ...

  Bloomberg A mass exodus out of East Asia seems unlikely for US manufacturers in 2023, with any decision to diversify supply chains away from the region dictated by costs, as well as logistics considerations, according to separate reports. “The ultimate extent of how much production will be reshored or moved closer to home remains an open issue and will ...

  Bloomberg Sweden’s inflation rate reached double digits for the first time in more than three decades in December, as price increases show little sign of abating despite the central bank’s efforts. The CPIF measure of inflation that’s tracked by the Riksbank rose by 10.2% from a year earlier, according to Statistics Sweden. That’s more than the 9.8% expected by ...

  Bloomberg Germany’s economy probably stagnated in the final quarter of 2022, defying analyst expectations for a contraction and easing fears of a recession triggered by the war in Ukraine and soaring inflation. For the year as a whole, output increased 1.9% — down from 2.6% in 2021 and just ahead of the 1.8% estimate in a Bloomberg survey, the ...