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 ...

  Bloomberg Russia claimed Moscow’s troops had taken Soledar, a small town in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, in one of their first victories in months. Kyiv rejected the claim. A salt mining town with a population of 10,000 before Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, Soledar has limited strategic value but has been the site of weeks of ...

Bloomberg Turkey summoned Sweden’s ambassador after supporters of the Kurdish militant group PKK and its affiliates hanged an effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a protest in Stockholm. Sweden must crack down on terrorism if it wants to join Nato, Turkey said, after the puppet was hung by the feet outside the city hall in the Swedish capital ...

Bloomberg Allies of Pakistan’s former premier Imran Khan are moving to dissolve two of the four provincial assemblies in a bid to force Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to call for national elections well before November. The assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces will be dissolved on Saturday to make way for local polls, said party officials from Khan’s Pakistan ...

Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will seek public support for his robust new security strategy from US President Joe Biden at their upcoming summit, after criticism from China. Kishida arrived Thursday in Washington on the last leg of a whirlwind tour that has taken him to most of the Group of Seven countries before Japan hosts the body’s summit ...

  Bloomberg Congressional Democrats added to pressure on President Joe Biden to kick Jair Bolsonaro out of the country, even as US officials stick to a wait-and-see approach in hopes that the former Brazilian president will make good on a promise to return home on his own. In a letter dated Thursday, 46 congressional Democrats urged Biden to remove Bolsonaro ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp (BofA) reported an increase in net interest income as the lender benefits from rate hikes, and its traders beat analysts’ estimates, reaping the benefits of dramatic market swings spurred by the higher rates, soaring inflation, recession fears and global political turmoil. Net interest income, the revenue collected from loan payments minus what depositors are paid, ...