International News

Bloomberg The French government was forced to revise its economic and financial forecasts for the second time in less than a week after President Emmanuel Macron extended the lockdown to combat the coronavirus. France will base an emergency budget on economic output contracting 8% this year, instead of 6% as it had planned last week. Extra spending to support companies ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s economic team wants to adopt a flexible fiscal target for 2021 as uncertainties caused by the novel coronavirus make it difficult to estimate the impact of the crisis, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter. The government has until April 15 to send a bill to Congress with forecasts for next year. The bill has ...

Bloomberg JBS SA, the world’s top meat company, will shutter its beef facility in Greeley, Colorado, through April 24 amid an outbreak of the coronavirus among plant employees and neighboring communities. The Greeley facility will wind down operations over the next two days with a diminished staff to ensure existing product in the facility can be used to support food ...

Bloomberg Now Germany is deploying its financial firepower to fight the coronavirus crisis, convincing the country that it was wrong to shun budget deficits for many years just got even harder. The government of Europe’s biggest economy has long faced calls by officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB), to the US administration of ...

Bloomberg India is seeking ways to resume construction of highways and arterial roads in districts least impacted by the coronavirus outbreak as it charts out a plan to revive Asia’s third-largest economy. Builders were constructing 31 kilometres (19.3 miles) of roads a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the lockdown starting from March 25. India plans to spend $12 ...

Bloomberg The contraction in China’s foreign trade is set to continue through the second quarter, as global demand remains depressed by measures to curb the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. Both exports and imports are forecast to have slumped 10% or more in March, with data due on Tuesday expected to show a continuation of the declines seen in the first two ...

Bloomberg The Philippines has temporarily barred doctors, nurses and other health workers from leaving for overseas work amid the coronavirus outbreak, a move that irked its top diplomat who pledged to fight the ban. The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration issued a resolution on April 2 halting the departure of workers in 14 medical professions for the duration of the nation’s ...

Bloomberg China’s largest food-delivery site Meituan has hit back against allegations that it charged onerous commissions to restaurants during the Covid-19 outbreak, underscoring the delicate balance the company must strike to get its business back on track. Responding to complaints from a restaurant association in the southern province of Guangdong, Meituan said its average profit per delivery order was less ...

Bloomberg China’s securities regulator punished two high-flying startups for misleading shareholders, barring them access to public markets for new funding. Shares of Ningbo Ronbay New Energy Technology Co and Zhejiang HangKe Technology Inc closed down at least 10% in Shanghai after the companies were told they wouldn’t be allowed to sell stocks or bonds publicly for a year. The punishment ...

Bloomberg Gross domestic product (GDP) in the Latin America and Caribbean region, excluding Venezuela, is expected to shrink 4.6% in 2020, according to the World Bank. The dramatic drop in demand from China and G7 countries due to the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting commodity exporters in South America and exporters of manufactured goods and services in Central America and the ...