Bloomberg France will increase its defense budget over six years as President Emmanuel Macron seeks to adjust the nation’s military to new threats posed by the war in Ukraine and technological attacks. In a speech Friday, Macron said he expects the state to spend 400 billion euros ($433 billion) between 2024 and 2030, an increase from the 295 billion ...

  Bloomberg The US signaled growing impatience with Turkey over its resistance to ratifying Nato’s expansion to Sweden and Finland. “The United States urges remaining allies to quickly ratify their accession,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in an account of a call between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto. He used similar language in ...

  Bloomberg Over the past few years, Vietnamese Communist Party Chief Nguyen Phu Trong has won praise from investors for removing corrupt officials. Now as some big names fall, it’s becoming clear his campaign serves another purpose: strengthening his hand in choosing a successor. This week Nguyen Xuan Phuc was ousted as president after assuming “political responsibility” for the “violations ...

  Bloomberg Europe mustn’t get embroiled in a standoff between China and the US, and should instead forge its own path in strengthening economic relations, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said. There is a “slight gap” between how Europe and the US deal with China, he told Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It’s ...

  Bloomberg The best start to a year for bond returns is helping fuel an unprecedented debt-sale bonanza by governments and companies around the world of more than half a trillion dollars. From European banks to Asian corporates and developing-nation sovereigns, virtually every corner of the new issue market is booming, thanks in part to a rally that’s seen global ...

  Bloomberg UBS Group AG is recommending investors to buy European credit over US debt amid signs of distress in the US loan markets, cracks emerging in private credit and a potentially severe downside risk in US high-yield debt. “We acknowledge US high yield is better positioned — mainly on the shift in credit quality,” UBS analysts led by Matthew ...

  Bloomberg Two Southeast Asian central banks diverged in their policy settings on Thursday, with Malaysia unexpectedly standing pat and Indonesia delivering a widely expected interest-rate increase that brings it closer to the end of its tightening cycle. Bank Indonesia raised its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 5.75%, while Bank Negara Malaysia stood pat as predicted by Euben ...

  Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said policymakers mustn’t let up in their battle with inflation — even as the spike in prices appears to have peaked. “We have to also stay that course of resilience that we observed in 2022,” Lagarde told a panel on Friday at Davos. “‘Stay the course’ is my mantra for monetary-policy ...

Bloomberg National Australia Bank Ltd (NAB) has created its own stablecoin pegged to the Australian dollar, a move it says will help large institutional customers with transactions that use blockchain technology. The Melbourne-based lender will start testing the token — named AUDN — before expanding its use cases and getting feedback on the needs of corporate clients, National Australia said ...

  Bloomberg Pakistan’s central bank governor Jameel Ahmad said the nation will see dollar inflows in the coming days after funding commitments from some nations, a move that could bolster finances for cash-strapped nation. The central bank’s biggest strain is limited resources, Ahmad said at an event hosted by the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry. The governor also said ...