Hong Kong Double-Dip, Australia Puzzle, Singapore Spend: Eco Day

Michael Heath
·2 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Wednesday, Asia. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help get your day started:

Hong Kong is heading for its first back-to-back annual recessions on record, as the coronavirus shutdown cripples an economy already battered by months of political unrestAustralia’s central bank chief Philip Lowe and his U.S. counterpart Jerome Powell have both witnessed multi-year hiring surges. Yet Powell’s jobless rate has a 3 in front of it and Lowe’s a 5Singapore will post its biggest budget deficit since at least 1997, pledging S$6.4 billion ($4.6 billion) in dedicated support for an economy being slammed by the coronavirus outbreakThe biggest question for the global economy right now is how quickly China can get back to anything like normal operations while it’s battling the coronavirus outbreakDallas Fed President Robert Kaplan says monetary policy is “roughly appropriate,” and he expects rates to remain on hold through 2020President Donald Trump cast doubts over the likelihood of an anticipated trade deal with India just days before a scheduled visitEuro-area finance ministers were presented with a fiscal policy document highlighting a lack of coordination, and the risk of a protracted economic malaise reminiscent of the one that befell Japan. Their response: silenceJapanese banks must accelerate their preparation for the end of Libor to avoid possible damage to the financial sector and the wider economy, according to a senior Bank of Japan official who has seen the initial results of a key nationwide surveyBrazil central bank President Roberto Campos Neto met with one of the country’s largest legislative caucuses to hammer home that it’s time to pass a long-awaited autonomy billBoris Johnson’s “deep and abiding love for Australia,” born in the gap year he spent there, is inspiring the U.K. prime minister anew

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Jackson at pjackson53@bloomberg.net, Alexandra Veroude

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