Aurelia Butler

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -A fire blazed on a ship off the Dutch coast with nearly 3,000 vehicles on board on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring several others, the coastguard said.The fire began on Tuesday night on the 199-metre Panama-registered Fremantle Highway, which was en route from Germany to Egypt, forcing several crew members to jump overboard. Rescue ships sprayed water onto the burning boat to cool it down, but using too much water risked its sinking, the Dutch coastguard said. A salvage vessel hooked on to stop it drifting.”The fire is most definitely still not controlled. It’s a very hard fire to extinguish, possibly because of the cargo the ship was transporting,” said Edwin Versteeg, a spokesperson for the Dutch Department of Waterways and Public Works.The coastguard said on its website that the cause of the fire was unknown, but a coastguard spokesperson had earlier told Reuters it began near an electric car.The coastguard said the Fremantle, which had departed from the port of Bremerhaven, had been towed out of shipping lanes and could sink. It was 27 km (17 miles) north of the Dutch island of Ameland when the fire started.The fire spread so quickly that seven crew members jumped overboard, said Willard Molenaar of the Royal Dutch Rescue Company (KNRM), who was among the first at the scene.Molenaar told Dutch broadcaster NOS some people were injured jumping the long way down into the water, while one crew member had died in the flames.”There was lot of smoke and the fire spread quickly, much faster than expected,” he said. “The people on board had to get off quickly … We fished them out of the water.” A helicopter airlifted the remaining people from the 23-strong crew off the burning ship. The injured were being treated for breathing problems, burns, and broken bones, local Dutch authorities said.Coastguard spokesperson Edwin Granneman said salvage experts were trying to work out next steps for the burning boat.Shoei Kisen, the Japanese ship leasing company that manages the Fremantle, said it was working with the Dutch authorities to extinguish the fire.The incident was the latest of several fires in recent times on car carriers.Earlier this month, two New Jersey firefighters were killed and five injured battling a blaze on a cargo ship carrying hundreds of vehicles. A fire destroyed thousands of luxury cars on a ship off the coast of Portugal’s Azores islands in February last year. More

(Reuters) -U.S. central bankers have signaled they are likely to raise interest rates at the end of their two-day policy meeting on Wednesday after holding the benchmark overnight interest rate steady in the 5.00%-5.25% range in June. Data since then has kept that decision on track. Here’s a guide to some of the numbers shaping the policy debate: RETAIL SALES (Released on July 18, next release on Aug. 15): Retail sales rose less than expected in June, increasing just 0.2%. But a separate measure known as “core” retail sales, which better reflects underlying economic growth, posted a strong 0.6% gain. The overall slow pace of increase may indicate the start of a pullback by consumers, something that the Fed has been anticipating and, through its rate hikes, trying to encourage. INFLATION (released on July 12, next release on July 28): Consumer price inflation tumbled in June to a 3% annual rate, from 4% in May, the slowest pace since March of 2021 and a sign of what some economists expect is the start of steady progress for the Fed’s inflation fight. It likely won’t dissuade officials from a rate hike at this week’s meeting, a move that is widely expected in financial markets. Prices based on the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge increased 3.8% in May on a year-over-year basis, but underlying inflation pressures remained stuck in overdrive, with the core personal consumption expenditures index at 4.6%.But it could begin to undercut arguments for more hikes beyond that point, and may shift the Fed’s relentlessly hawkish tone. EMPLOYMENT (Released on July 7, next release on Aug. 4): The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, fewer than expected and part of a continued pullback towards levels seen in the years before the coronavirus pandemic – job growth averaged around 180,000 per month from 2010 through 2019. But, notably for the Fed, average annual wage growth held at 4.4% for a third month in a row rather than slowing, as had been expected, and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.6%.That evidence of continued strength in the labor market, even amid some gradual slowing, is likely to keep the U.S. central bank on track for another rate increase on Wednesday. JOB OPENINGS: (Released on July 6, next release on Aug. 1) Fed Chair Jerome Powell keeps a close eye on the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, to derive what has become a key metric of the imbalance between labor supply and demand – the number of job openings for each jobseeker. During the pandemic there were nearly two jobs for every available worker. That ratio has dropped as the Fed’s rate hikes have slowed labor market demand, and in May hit its lowest level since November 2021 at around 1.6-to-1.BANK DATA: Released every Thursday and FridayTo some degree the Fed wants credit to become more expensive and less available. That’s how increases in its policy rate influence economic activity. But recent bank failures threatened both unwanted broader stress in the industry and a worse-than-anticipated credit crunch. Weekly data on bank lending to customers show loan growth is slowing. Borrowing by banks from the Fed, meanwhile, remains elevated but relatively stable on a week-to-week basis. More

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Time is running out for Argentina to secure the next tranche of a $44 billion loan with the International Monetary Fund, which it could use to repay the fund older debt due in coming days. With both sides saying an agreement on policy steps required to release $4 billion from the IMF loan was close, but not quite there yet, and no liquid currency reserves to tap, Buenos Aires may need to use a swap line with Beijing, again, to make a $3.4 billion payment. THE REVIEWUnder the terms of the $44 billion program agreed in 2022, the funds are released in tranches based on regular reviews of steps Argentina takes to shore up its economy.Argentina’s efforts to shore up its reserves and reduce fiscal deficit are the focus of the current fifth review. The IMF welcomed steps Buenos Aires announced on Monday, which included import taxes and a new set of trade-related and weaker exchange rates to build up reserves in what Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) called an “implicit devaluation.”However, potential inflationary impact of such steps means Economy Minister Sergio Massa, who is the ruling coalition’s candidate for October presidential elections, will be in no rush to implement any painful measures.”The government has no appetite to do anything comprehensive in terms of having a full stabilization and adjustment program before the election because obviously that’s politically very costly,” said Gordian Kemen, head of emerging markets sovereign strategy (West) at Standard Chartered (OTC:SCBFF) Bank. “I think that’s the reality that the IMF understands,” said Kemen, who is overweight in Argentina’s sovereign bonds.”Our base case has always been they want to get them through the election.” CRUNCH TIMETo access the IMF funds, Argentina first needs to reach a staff level agreement with the Fund on the fifth review, which then has to get signed off by the IMF’s executive board.That is where it gets extremely tight. Repayment of $2.6 billion is due on July 31 and almost $800 million due on Aug. 1 on a loan from 2018. It is not clear whether the executive board will be able to convene before the summer recess during the first half of August.The IMF did not respond to a request for comment on the likelihood of a board meeting soon to discuss the Argentina program.Board members normally have about two weeks to read the documents linked to any staff level agreement before they vote on a review or a new loan. EMPTY COFFERS Timing is critical for Argentina, which is almost out of options, given its central bank reserves have been draining for years under strict foreign exchange controls from the government. The dollar shortage got even worse this year because Argentina, a major grains exporter, was hit by the worst drought in six decades. Gross reserves stand at $25 billion, but the cash-strapped economy’s net reserves, discounting liabilities, are over $6 billion in the red.Argentina made the last IMF payment due end-June partially with its holdings of IMF special-drawing rights (SDRs), but analysts calculated that this has wiped out the country’s $1.65 billion in IMF reserve assets.THE CHINESE OPTIONThat leaves a yuan swap line with Beijing, which Latin America’s third biggest economy could use to avoid going into arrears with the IMF. Argentina used $1.1 billion in yuan from a recently extended and expanded swap line with China to complete the June payment to the IMF. According to Buenos Aires-based consultancy Empiria the country has so far used about $3.5 billion out of the nearly $10 billion of freely accessible swap, so will have more than enough to cover its upcoming payments.FALLING INTO ARREARSMissing payments would automatically put Argentina in default with the IMF because there is no grace period with the multilateral lender. Any payment delays of up to 180 days are considered a short-term arrears, according to an IMF working paper. Those can be cleared by simply paying the amount due, but a delay could make financial markets nervous, putting Buenos Aires under more pressure. More

The writer is a professor at Oxford university and the author, with Tom Lee-Devlin, of Age of the CityThe year ahead will bring continued economic misery to the US and UK, as high interest rates drag down growth and squeeze already strained households. The people and places that will suffer the most are the same ones left behind by the growth of the past decade and a half. If we do not reverse course, soaring inequality will continue to corrode our trust in institutions and one another. Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and the pervasive toxicity of today’s political debate in many countries are all the consequence of growing anger at urban elites seen to be cloistered in thriving metropolises such as London, New York and Paris.Yet for all the rhetoric from politicians promising to do better, little has changed. London has become even richer than the rest of the UK since Boris Johnson unveiled his pledge to “level up” struggling regions, and in the US advances in artificial intelligence have rekindled the tech bubble, driving salaries in the top cities to levels not seen elsewhere.In the early 2000s, with trade barriers falling and the internet drawing the world closer together, conventional wisdom held that the global economic playing field would become less tilted towards a small number of winners. The world was flat, as Thomas Friedman memorably put it. Instead, our world became spiky, with economic opportunity concentrating in a few centres of global commerce and innovation.During the industrial revolution, natural capital such as ports, streams and deposits of coal and iron ore drew businesses and workers to cities such as Baltimore and Manchester. Now, it is the ability to attract and retain human capital that matters. And today’s top talent, for the most part, wants to live in big, dynamic cities. Meanwhile, former industrial cities in the US, UK and elsewhere have suffered as manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Cities such as London, New York and Paris have also become increasingly inaccessible. House prices have rocketed as a result of a dearth of new development combined with years of low interest rates. The decline of social housing has worsened the situation, as have underfunded public transport and education systems. Plato once observed that every city “is in fact divided into two: one the city of the poor, the other of the rich”. That is especially true today.“Levelling up” tends to be focused on bringing new economic opportunities to left-behind places; but it should also be about fixing the deep inequalities that plague leading cities. Starving dynamic cities of resources risks levelling down everyone as national growth slows and inequalities widen.Turning cities around is still possible. Seattle, once stuck in a seemingly unstoppable cycle of urban decay, has become a major tech centre thanks to the anchoring power of Microsoft.Cities such as Leipzig in east Germany have, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, managed to steadily bridge the gap with wealthier cities in the west — helped by devolved decision making and federal government funding to improve public services and foster innovation. In the UK, Bristol has turned its fortunes around, building on its universities to draw in talent, create a vibrant entertainment sector and capitalise on its beautiful surroundings.But reversing the trajectory of cities on a downward spiral is hard. The remarkably low level of divergence in per capita incomes across cities in Japan, for instance, has been possible only thanks to the government’s commitment to the cause over many decades. It also often requires trade-offs. Today’s globalised knowledge economy tends to favour large cities over small ones, with the geographical concentrations of the frontiers of computing and biotechnology reinforcing these divides. Unfortunately, not every languishing city will be able to turn itself round.The rise of hybrid working raises the stakes. With vacant offices and underutilised transit lines drying up municipal funds, cities will be unable to tackle these issues on their own. Yet new working patterns also offer opportunities for a reset by converting soulless office districts into vibrant mixed-use neighbourhoods. We live in an urban world. To understand inequality, and to tackle it, we must look to our cities. To overcome inequality, the cities that are the engines of national growth need to thrive while the deep divisions within them are addressed, along with growing regional divides. It is in cities that the battle for a better world will be won or lost. More

“Growth is expected to enter a slower phase and downside risks dominate the outlook,” the IMF said in the conclusions of its annual ‘Article IV’ visit to Rome. It forecast that gross domestic product in the euro zone’s third largest economy would rise 1.1% this year and 0.9% in 2024, slowing compared with last year’s buoyant 3.7% expansion.”Policies that slow public debt reduction or prolonged delays in receiving NextGenerationEU (NGEU) disbursements could raise financing concerns”, the IMF said, while “a sharper tightening of monetary policy could transmit asymmetrically to Italy and further raise borrowing costs.”This in turn could reduce funding availability, causing public and private spending to retrench and reviving concerns about sovereign-bank-corporate linkages, the Fund added.Italy’s hopes of transforming its economy with billions of euros of NGEU funds are dwindling, businesses on the ground say, with inefficiencies at all levels raising the risk of a greater boost to debt than to growth.Rome is behind schedule both in meeting the policy conditions agreed with Brussels and in spending the cash it has already received.The IMF forecast that Italy’s public debt, proportionally the second highest in the euro zone after Greece’s, will decline to 140.5% of GDP this year, from 144.4% in 2022.The average inflation rate, based on Italy’s EU-harmonised index (HICP) will fall sharply to 5.2% in 2023 from 8.7% last year, and ease further to 2.5% in 2024, driven by lower energy and food prices, the IMF said. Most recent data shows Italy’s HICP inflation rate stood at 6.7% in June, decelerating from 8.0% the month before. More