Bloomberg Hong Kong’s retail sales plummeted 13.8% in March, the first back-to-back contraction in more than a year as stringent virus restrictions weighed heavily on the economy and crushed consumer spending. The fall in sales value from a year earlier was worse than the median estimate of a 12.6% decline expected by economists in a survey, though it was ...

  Bloomberg European banks are counting the rising cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as they brace for a wave of defaults and write down the value of their operations in the country. Led by Societe Generale SA and UniCredit SpA, the region’s lenders have so far flagged a hit of $8.6 billion to their earnings from the war. The ...

  Bloomberg The Czech central bank lifted borrowing costs more than expected to the highest level since 1999 and signalled further monetary policy tightening to come as intensifying inflation pressure eclipses risks to economic growth. Policy makers raised the benchmark rate by 75 basis points to 5.75% — exceeding the forecasts of all analysts in a Bloomberg survey for a ...