April, 2020

• 20 April

  Canada steps up surveillance of foreign investment in pandemic

  

  Bloomberg Canada says it will apply extra scrutiny to foreign investment in companies that are related to public health or that supply critical goods during the pandemic. “There are vulnerable businesses that are going to be important to our recovery who are perhaps exposed to foreign purchases,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. “We will be strengthening our ...

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• 20 April

  Spain economy to shrink by around 12% in 2020

  

  Bloomberg Spain’s economy could contract this year by more than 12% in a worst-case-scenario forecast by the country’s central bank, the first official figures that spell out the potential toll of the coronavirus pandemic on the European Union’s fourth-largest economy. The economic shock could push the unemployment rate to as high as 21.7% this year, undoing gains achieved in the ...

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• 20 April

  Germany’s $2.2b bailout for startups stuck by who pays up

  

  Bloomberg Germany has pledged 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) to help its beleaguered startups, but the policy has stalled after the country’s governmental departments failed to agree on who has to pay. More than two weeks after the aid plan has been announced, Germany’s finance and economy ministries are yet to find common ground over who is responsible for paying ...

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• 20 April

  US firms to slash cash spending

  Bloomberg The biggest US companies will slash their cash spending this year amid the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “We forecast S&P 500 cash spending will decline by an annual record 33% during 2020 as firms prioritize liquidity in a worsening economic environment,” strategists led by David Kostin wrote in a ...

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• 20 April

  Wuhan lab denies any link to first coronavirus outbreak

  

  Bloomberg A top Wuhan laboratory official has denied any role in spreading the new coronavirus, in the most high profile response from a facility at the center of months of speculation about how the previously unknown animal disease made the leap to humans. Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, hit back at those promoting theories that the ...

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• 20 April

  Merkel warns of virus-relapse risk as Germany eases curbs

  

  Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that public debate about easing restrictions to contain the coronavirus risked sparking a new wave of infections even as Germany took its first tentative steps towards normalcy. In a closed-door meeting of her Christian Democratic party on Monday in Berlin, she said “discussion orgies” about loosening lockdowns threatened to destroy the progress in fighting the ...

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• 20 April

  Covid-19: Ghana president lifts lockdown

  

  Bloomberg Ghana became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to ease movement restrictions after a 21-day lockdown of its biggest cities bought the government enough time to improve its preparedness for the coronavirus pandemic, said President Nana Akufo-Addo. Residents of the capital, Accra, and major centres are allowed to return to work from Monday even though other restrictions such as ...

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• 20 April

  Mallya loses extradition appeal in London court

  

  Bloomberg Former billionaire Vijay Mallya lost a bid at a London appeal court to block his extradition to India, putting the fallen tycoon one step closer to facing fraud and money-laundering charges in his home country. A London appeal court upheld a 2018 ruling to send him back to India over allegations that Mallya made a number of misrepresentations leading ...

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• 20 April

  Johnson resists easing UK lockdown on fears of new wave

  

  Bloomberg Boris Johnson is resisting pressure to ease the UK’s coronavirus lockdown too soon, fearing a second wave of the pandemic could hit the country, a person familiar with the matter said. The prime minister, who is yet to return to work after being struck by the virus himself, spoke with colleagues including his deputy, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, to ...

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• 20 April

  Can we really crawl out of the economic gutter?

  

  Where is the demand to come from? That is the crucial economic question these days. If we can’t answer it (and for now, we can’t), then the outlook is bleak. It implies a weak recovery or — worse — a Depression-like stagnation with massive joblessness. Economists project the recovery to begin sometime in the summer. But who will do the ...

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