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Bloomberg China has started the process of potentially merging its two biggest brokerage firms to create a company that can better compete with the global investment banks as the country opens up its financial markets, according to people familiar with the matter. Citic Securities Co and CSC Financial Co, along with their government shareholders Citic Group and Central Huijin Investment ...

Bloomberg The Philippines is allowing health workers with existing overseas contracts to leave, relaxing an order earlier this month to keep them in the country to reinforce the healthcare system amid the pandemic. Future applications for healthcare jobs abroad are “frozen until further notice,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, who called the ban unconstitutional, said. President Rodrigo Duterte said that ...

Bloomberg A researcher at China’s biggest oil company said the country’s drillers should copy the hedging strategies of Mexico and shale firms in the US, which use financial derivatives to protect against falling oil prices. Most of China’s oil production is unhedged, leaving the stability of the sector exposed to global market fluctuations, according to Dai Jiaquan, director of the ...

Bloomberg Japan revised lower its latest greenhouse gas emissions figures, which it had already reported as the least since records began in 1990. Emissions fell 3.9% from a year earlier, data on Tuesday from the environment ministry showed, a bigger drop than the 3.6% estimate in November. The figures, for the year through March 2019, are the latest available. The ...

Bloomberg Springtime is a difficult moment to puzzle out what the ongoing economic shutdown means for global warming. Carbon-dioxide levels always drop throughout the spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere, as hungry plants absorb the primary greenhouse gas. This seasonal effect is occurring as pandemic lockdowns have stopped billions of people from driving and working, slashing fossil-fuel use and ...

Bloomberg China’s overseas energy purchases weakened in March as demand from the top importer took a hit from the coronavirus pandemic. Crude oil imports fell to the equivalent of about 9.72 million barrels a day, the least since July, according to customs data released on Tuesday. Natural gas shipments were little changed from a year ago at 6.92 million tons ...

Bloomberg Russia’s deepening economic crisis is on the verge of spilling into some of the most remittance-dependent economies in the world. Migrant workers from the former-Soviet Union send $13 billion home each year from Russia, where they are allowed to work visa-free. But now that money is starting to dry up due to lockdowns in Moscow and St. Petersburg that ...

Bloomberg Europe is heading for a double-digit slump in first half of 2020 amid widespread lockdowns to stem the spread of the coronavirus, according to economists. Bloomberg’s monthly survey puts the contraction in the euro area at more than 10% in the January-June period, with most of the hit — 8.3% — in the second quarter. Even with an expected ...

Bloomberg The US federal budget deficit is on track to exceed $3.8 trillion this year even if Congress doesn’t enact any more stimulus spending, and the nation’s debt will rise to levels not seen since the country emerged from World War II, a non-partisan budget watchdog estimated. The projection by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget would put the ...

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 ...