Economy

The Biden administration has opted not to tax state payments to residents, a decision that could add to the nation’s fiscal woes.WASHINGTON — More than 20 state governments, flush with cash from federal stimulus funds and a rebounding economy, shared their windfalls last year by sending residents one-time payments.This year, the Biden administration added a sweetener, telling tens of millions taxpayers they did not need to pay federal taxes on those payments.That decision by the Internal Revenue Service, while applauded by some tax experts and lawmakers, could cost the federal government as much $4 billion in revenue at a time when Washington is struggling with a ballooning federal deficit and entering a protracted fight over the nation’s debt limit.The I.R.S.’s ruling came after bipartisan pressure from lawmakers and was the latest move by the agency to forgo revenue this tax season.In December, the I.R.S. delayed by a year a new requirement that users of digital wallets like Venmo and Cash App report income on 1099-K forms if they had more than $600 of transactions. That requirement, which was part of the American Rescue Plan of 2021, was projected to raise nearly $1 billion in tax revenue per year over a decade. The last-minute decision to delay it followed intense lobbying from business groups and political backlash directed at the Biden administration, which was accused of breaking its pledge not to raise taxes on people making less than $400,000.Taken together, the moves by the I.R.S. run counter to two big economic issues bedeviling Washington — rapid inflation and concerns about the government’s ability to avoid defaulting on its debt.Allowing residents to avoid paying taxes on their state rebates means more money in their pockets to spend at a moment when the Federal Reserve is trying to rein in consumer and business spending to cool rising prices. A report released on Friday showed that, despite the Fed’s efforts to slow the economy, personal spending sped up in January.Understand the U.S. Debt CeilingCard 1 of 5What is the debt ceiling? More

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s factory activity is expected to have continued to grow in February, a Reuters poll showed on Monday, suggesting that the flashes of domestic demand seen since the zero-COVID policy ended are now strong enough to rekindle upstream sectors.Domestic orders and consumption drove output higher and saw economic activity in the world’s second-largest economy swing back to growth in January, and economists expect manufacturers to have consolidated that position now that the country’s COVID-19 epidemic has “basically” ended.The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) is expected to have improved to 50.5 in February, compared with 50.1 in January, according to the median forecast of 29 economists in a Reuters poll.An index reading above 50 indicates expansion in activity on a monthly basis and a reading below indicates contraction. The official manufacturing PMI, which largely focuses on big and state-owned firms, and its survey for the services sector, will be released on Wednesday.Despite COVID passing through the population faster than economists expected following the abandonment of the government’s strict “zero-COVID” policy in early December, factory gate prices fell in China in January, suggesting the country’s manufacturing sector was still struggling to recover.Optimism is building, however, and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) wrote in a note on Sunday that it expects “a strong NBS manufacturing PMI reading of 51 in February,” owing to “continued improvements in steel demand and coal consumption.” On Friday, China’s central bank announced that the domestic economy is expected to generally rebound in 2023, although the external environment remains “severe and complex.”The People’s Bank of China also pledged to start improving social expectations and boosting confidence, with a focus on supporting the expansion of domestic demand. More

Three decades ago, China’s annual economic output was about $433bn in current dollar terms, making its economy roughly the size of an Austria or South Africa today.It is now comfortably the world’s second biggest economy — with current-dollar gross domestic product of $17.7tn — and in the post-financial crisis era it has easily been the single biggest contributor to global GDP growth. Between the beginning of 2010 and the end of 2020, China’s economy grew by about $11.6tn in current-dollar terms. That’s the equivalent to adding about six and a half Russias, almost four UKs or Indias, nearly three Germanys, more than two Japans, or more than 50 Greeces. It’s like adding an Indonesia every year for a decade. Let’s set aside quibbles about the accuracy of Chinese economic data using current dollars etc. The point of this numberwang is to show that China has clearly been THE essential engine of global economic growth for the past decade plus.Why are we going over this again? Well, a few weeks ago we wrote about the IMF’s Article IV report on China. FT Alphaville subsequently had a chat with Sonali Jain-Chandra, the IMF’s mission chief for China, to dig a bit deeper into some of the issues (such as the ongoing property-market shenanigans) and find out what we should be thinking about that doesn’t necessarily hit the headlines. Our biggest takeaway was that the IMF has become much gloomier on the longer-term growth potential of China, having marked down forecasts for 2024-28 by more than a percentage point, decelerating to just 3.4 per cent by 2028. Here’s a chart showing the most recent forecasts versus those the IMF made in the last Article IV report a mere year ago, and the one from 2021.As Jain-Chandra pointed out, some of this was inevitable. But it is also a consequence of policy choices — and with the right policies the slowdown can be ameliorated. Here’s her view: “As the Chinese economy reaches closer to the frontier it is natural that growth would slow down from the 8-10 per cent growth seen in the past few decades. A slowdown was therefore inevitable, but that does not mean that higher than expected growth is not within reach. In fact our analysis shows that China has the potential to grow faster than our current medium-term projection if it adopts a comprehensive set of reforms aimed at boosting productivity and counteracting a declining labor force.”A separate “selected issues” report published after the Article IV puts more flesh on the bone. The main issues are well known. A rapidly ageing population means much slower labour-force growth in coming years, and productivity growth has already fallen sharply as the easy gains from investment in technology and skills have mostly been made. But there are some idiosyncratic issues that is increasingly weighing down China’s economic potential, according to the IMF:What is unique in the case of China is the additional pressure from diminishing returns of investment-led growth, as excessive investment — driven by record-high domestic savings — has been channeled towards relatively less productive SOEs, activities such as real estate, which are less growth-enhancing over the longer term, and to further increase China’s already comparatively very large public capital stock. This pattern of investment in China has sped up the decline in aggregate productivity, and hence, potential growth.Basically, it looks like China has now found itself in a classic middle-income trap, a term the World Bank invented back in 2006 to describe the phenomenon of emerging economies that never, well, actually emerge. On one hand, almost all the countries that have managed to spring themselves free from the mid-income trap are in Asia: South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, for instance. On the other, the current global economic environment is radically different today. Globalisation, for example, is sputtering.If China’s economy keeps downshifting then the implications are . . . not great. Going by World Bank data — via the St Louis Fed’s FRED database — China accounted for more than one in three dollars of economic growth in the 2010-2020 period. It can probably claim indirect credit for a lot more, thanks to the knock-on impact in countries like Brazil and Australia. What could possibly replace it? Let’s just say we’re still sceptical India will prove the answer.The IMF is not the only institution worried about the global implications of a secular downshift to China’s growth. Last October FTAV highlighted how the BlackRock Investment Institute was also low-key freaking out about the longer-term outlook for China and what it might mean for the rest of the world.While the relaxation of Covid-caused lockdowns has improved China’s near-term economic outlook, BlackRock’s Alex Brazier and Serena Jiang reckon that China’s potential growth rate could fall to just 3 per cent by the end of the decade. In the past, when countries faced a slowdown, they could still rely on Chinese consumers and companies to buy up their cars, chemicals, machinery, fuel — even as consumers at home tightened their belts. And they could rely on China to continue supplying an abundance of cheap products as China’s rapidly growing working population enabled it to keep production costs low. Not so anymore. Recession is looming now for the US, UK and Europe. But this time, China won’t be coming to its own, or anyone else’s, rescue.It now looks like the US and Europe might escape recessions (fingers x’d). But the longer-term fallout from stalling Chinese growth could still be stupendous. More

The writer is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, and an adviser to Allianz and GramercyIt took time but it is finally happening. Recent US economic data releases are inserting more forcefully the notion of “sticky inflation” into economic discussions. This comes after too many people — not just market participants and policymakers, but also a few economists — were inclined to prematurely declare victory in the important battle against the damaging price increases.The evolving deliberations, however, should go well beyond the immediate dynamics of price formation. They should also extend to structural issues, as tricky as these are.The initial surge in inflation was driven, first, by high food and energy prices and, subsequently, by broad-based price increases in the goods sector as a whole. Several items overshot, such as used cars, thereby setting the stage not only for a moderation but also an outright drop in their prices. As a result, too many rush to embrace continuous and orderly disinflation as the dominant theme of 2023.This reassuring picture seemed supported by January data releases on inflation and economic activity, fuelling the “immaculate inflation” narrative and revitalising some members of Team Transitory who had been vocal in 2021 before being humbled by the persistent inflation. Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell mentioned disinflation 11 times in the press conference that followed the February 1 policy announcement. He pointed markets to the upcoming Fed minutes for details on a possible dovish pivot in policy. Investors priced in not just a lower peak policy rate for this cycle but also cuts for the second half of the year. Stocks, bonds and Bitcoin rose in price.The rush to a comforting narrative reflected a mix of cognitive traps and unusual economic fluidity. It could not, however, withstand the subsequent upside data surprises for inflation, jobs and activity. Nor could it withstand last week’s release of minutes that said very little, if anything on a pivot and disinflation. Equities slid back while bond yields spiked higher.With measures of expected inflation also rising, Fed officials are being forced back to a more cautious tone with some even suggesting reversing the February 1 downshift in rate increases from 0.50 to 0.25 percentage points.There is now growing recognition that there is a limit to goods disinflation and that price increases in the services sector may prove quite stubborn. This better understanding of short-term inflation dynamics is a necessary step to avoid the Fed falling far behind for the third time in two years — a pattern that fuels the combined threat of persistently high and destabilising inflation, recession, job losses and widening inequality of income and opportunity. It is not sufficient, however. It needs to be accompanied by a stronger policy architecture and a constructive evolution in the policy debate away from the Fed being “the only game in town”, chasing an increasingly elusive and outdated inflation target. In my opinion, the fundamental medium-term characterisation of the US economy has shifted from one of deficient aggregate demand to one of deficient aggregate supply. Yes, the pandemic contributed to this but there is a lot more going on.Some of the driving forces include the overdue green transition in energy and elsewhere, changing globalisation, a multiyear quest to enhance supply chain resilience and a labour market that struggles to fill a record excess of job openings. Those who agree the supply side of the domestic and global economy is most deterministic for inflation, growth and social outcomes immediately confront two tricky issues. One is what to do about a Fed inflation target that is too low for such a world and yet hard to revise given that the world’s most important central bank has already undermined its credibility. The second is how to better incorporate policymaking agencies beyond the Fed in a co-ordinated fight against inflation. Congress needs to help: first, by enhancing Fed accountability and requiring it to update its policy framework, as well as follow the example of the Bank of England in structurally inserting outside views in its policy formulation process; and second, by formulating a more comprehensive approach to easing supply side constraints.The recent US policy advances on energy transition issues provide a foundation to build on for a future of high, inclusive and sustainable growth, together with genuine financial stability. Let’s hope the administration can secure sufficient congressional bipartisanship to take advantage of this important window. More

Joe Biden’s administration hopes to unleash a green revolution by offering hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to clean energy companies, but the US president’s flagship legislation also threatens to spark a fresh trade war.The Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by US Congress last summer, earmarks around $369bn in grants, loans and tax credits for the rollout of renewable energy and clean technologies across the US. Since the law passed, $90bn of investment has been committed to clean energy projects in the country, ranging from solar panel factories to electric vehicle plants and battery hubs. And, across many sectors, companies are rewarded for building equipment nationally, or sourcing components and critical minerals from the US or countries that the US has a free trade agreement with. As a result, the law has alarmed US trading partners, including Europe and Japan, who fear they will lose out to the US on new jobs and business investment. French President Emmanuel Macron said recently that the new climate law threatened to “fragment the West”.European Union officials have also accused Washington of discriminating against European companies and breaking global trade rules overseen by the World Trade Organization — particularly in the electric vehicle sector, where companies score the full tax credit if they manufacture cars in North America.David Kleimann, a trade expert and visiting fellow at Bruegel, the European think-tank, says that, while the IRA is a welcome piece of climate legislation, it also includes “trade-distortive subsidies” including provisions to manufacture in the US, which are prohibited under World Trade Organization rules.In response, the EU is working on its own raft of green subsidies, beginning with proposals to loosen up the bloc’s strict state aid rules. However, corresponding subsidies on either side of the Atlantic have prompted concerns that companies will “subsidy shop” — playing governments against each other and locating their businesses in the most lucrative domain. Earlier this month, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire and German economy minister Robert Habeck staged a rare joint visit to Washington, DC, meeting with US trade representative Katherine Tai, commerce secretary Gina Raimondo and Treasury secretary Janet Yellen. Habeck said that, along with conveying the “European view of the problems” at the meeting, the pair had discussed concerns that the IRA could prompt a “bidding war on subsidies”. Le Maire said they had all agreed on the need for “full transparency about the level of subsidies and tax credits” awarded to companies. But some analysts have estimated that the overall level of subsidies awarded under the US legislation could be much higher than forecast by the Congressional Budget Office.“What’s fascinating about the structure of these subsidies and tax credits is that how big they are depends entirely on how responsive the consumers are, how responsive the companies are and what the economic conditions are,” says Chad Bown, of the Peterson Institute.“We’ve got a range of estimates of how big the subsidies could be, depending on how much we think consumers and companies [will] choose to access them.”There are also concerns that subsidies on both sides of the Atlantic could distort industries and potentially lead to overcapacity. Bown says an excess of renewable energy could be good thing. “It’s hard to imagine having too much clean energy,” he says. “Even if there was too much for the US market, [and] they had to dump it out there to the rest of the world.”With more clean energy available, it could reduce demand for oil, which he suggests would be a positive result.In addition, US officials argue that clean energy innovation and investment in the country would bring advantages to Europe and elsewhere by driving down clean energy costs and opening up opportunities for other investors.“The challenge of dealing with the climate crisis requires . . . a transformation of the global economy on a size and scale that’s never occurred in human history,” said John Podesta, the White House official in charge of rolling out Biden’s green subsidy package, last week. “So there’s plenty of room for everybody to participate in that.” More

Wind turbine makers expect their fortunes to remain challenging this year, but are hoping for a turnround in 2024 as US legislation fuels investment there and European policymakers speed up the years-long permitting process. Manufacturers including Vestas and Siemens Gamesa warned in January that the wind industry would continue to suffer in 2023, due to high materials costs and slow approvals for new wind power projects in Europe. Siemens Gamesa’s chair, Christian Bruch, said the industry was “facing serious financial challenges”. Executives and analysts remain hopeful about the longer term outlook, though. They point to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has earmarked $369bn for clean energy and climate-related projects — and has pushed European policymakers to step up their support for green industries.“I think there is some good news on the horizon,” including the falling prices of raw materials including steel, says Elena Pravettoni, clean power lead at the Energy Transitions Commission think-tank.These last 12 months, however, have been a rocky time for the windpower industry, despite a growing demand for renewable sources amid the European energy crisis, Inflation and supply chain delays have squeezed margins and contributed to job cuts. At the same time, the slow approvals process in Europe has held back growth in the sector, which faces aggressive competition from China. But, now, the passing of the IRA has injected new excitement into the US and EU renewables industry. “We think this is really a turnround year,” says Ben Backwell, chief executive of the Global Wind Energy Council. In Europe, he says, orders for wind turbines are expected to increase. In the US, the IRA will give onshore wind “a massive boost”. Although the US and Europe are both growth markets, leading turbine makers’ requirements differ in the two regions. In Europe, they are pushing for faster planning and permitting processes for new projects. The think-tank Ember has found that obtaining permits for new onshore schemes could take up to 10 years. EU legislation says it should take no more than two. Siemens Gamesa has highlighted uncertainty around eligibility for IRA incentives, which is limiting companies’ investment decisions © Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty ImagesAlessandro Boschi, head of the European Investment Bank (EIB) renewable energy division, says the slow permitting process is “one of the main reasons for investments not picking up at the pace needed”.Back in 2019, Fachagentur Windenergie an Land, a Berlin-based industry association, found that about a fifth of permitted projects in Germany faced legal challenges — including from environmental groups and individuals on wildlife protection grounds. This level of opposition remains about the same today, it notes. Industry body WindEurope welcomes EU moves to accelerate the renewables rollout but notes many proposals have yet to be implemented. “We will probably only see the effects of this on average permitting times in some months from now,” WindEurope says.In the US, turbine manufacturers also need clarity on how they will be able to take advantage of IRA incentives. Siemens Gamesa noted in January that uncertainty over the rules and eligibility was “limiting the ability for industry players to make significant investment decisions in the near term”.Vestas’s group senior vice-president of marketing and public affairs, Morten Dyrholm, says the IRA is “a good example of what we think policymakers should be focusing on” — but adds that the company is awaiting official guidance from the US tax authorities on how they can use the act. Vestas, which has a presence in the US, is “not making any premature investment decisions”.Even so, Dyrholm expects the IRA to drive a significant rise in renewables investment. The “risk” for Europe is that future investments move to other growth markets, including the US and Asia, he says. For many European companies, the biggest issue is how to compete with Chinese turbine manufacturers. The EIB has stressed the importance of competing on technology and quality grounds, rather than on price, and the industry has called for policymakers to develop a domestic supply chain for the raw materials needed for turbines, to reduce reliance on China.“As China and now the US pursue strong industrial policies to promote clean energy manufacturing, the EU needs policies to maintain and expand its manufacturing base,” says Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Backwell says most countries have under invested in the wind supply chain, apart from China. “You can see certain markets becoming very tight in the coming years,” he predicts, given the fact that supply chains will struggle to keep up with rising demand. More investment and co-ordination between industry and governments will be needed to meet increasing demand, he believes.While some of Europe’s green industries have sounded the alarm over the IRA, fearing it could lure domestic supply chains to the US, analysts expect the act to benefit leading European turbine makers that operate in both markets. The US legislation should support demand for wind turbines, according to analysts at Fitch Ratings, but they do not expect European manufacturers and suppliers to see its benefits before 2024. While “profitability is under pressure” for European manufacturers, they say, “long-term demand for renewable energy equipment remains strong”. In the UK, policymakers must step up efforts to ensure the market remains competitive, warns Claire Mack, chief executive of industry group Scottish Renewables. But anything driving an increase of operations “is a good thing” for economies of scale and innovation in the industry, she adds.

Video: Falling wind speeds could affect green energy strategy | FT Rethink More

Crackdown on ambiguous claims: the UN now says any business with a 2050 net zero emissions pledge ought to have a transition plan with “credible and ambitious targets for 2025 and 2030” © Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty ImagesBarring surprise developments, 2023 will be the first year of the 21st century when no G7 country has a general or presidential election.With luck, this period of relative political calm will also help to make 2023 a turning point in efforts to tackle one of the great dilemmas of our age: climate change. There are gathering signs that the meaningful government climate action that has long been missing from the drive for net zero emissions will start to take shape this year.It is not before time. Nearly five years have passed since a groundbreaking UN report showed carbon dioxide emissions must nearly halve by 2030, and reach net zero by around 2050, to meet the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C.This was always going to be monumentally difficult. Nearly 90 per cent of CO₂ emissions come from fossil fuels that supply close to 80 per cent of the world’s energy.Still, the report triggered an outpouring of net zero commitments that today have been made by at least 132 countries and by more than 820 of the 2,000 largest listed companies.Alas, there have been virtually no rules to govern this eruption of pledges. A company could promise to become net zero by 2050 without saying what it would do in any year before then. Or it could have a plan to offset its emissions with carbon credits based on saving a patch of forest on the other side of the world. Or it could devise a net zero target for the speck of emissions it produced at its own offices or factories, but not for the far larger share of pollution driven by its products and suppliers.

Proof required: of 24 companies assessed for their climate strategies, only one (Maersk) showed ‘reasonable integrity’ © Mario Tama/Getty Images

The result of this unruly situation was spelt out in February in a stinging assessment of the climate strategies of 24 global companies, carried out by environmental groups. It found that just one — Denmark’s Maersk container shipping group — had “reasonable integrity”.Most companies had vague, “highly ambiguous” net zero targets that did not represent “a commitment to deep decarbonisation”. And the same could be said for many national governments. But change is afoot, not least in the world’s largest economy. Last year’s US Inflation Reduction Act is the most important climate action in American history. It contains billions of dollars of tax credits for clean energy and low-carbon technologies over the next decade and — crucially — it is spurring action elsewhere.The European Union this year unveiled a “green deal industrial plan” that includes a “net zero industry act” and other measures aimed at incentivising and fast-tracking clean energy projects across the bloc.This wave of green industrial policy has also sparked transatlantic trade tensions. However, assuming these can be managed, efforts to bring net zero plans to life could be transformed. For example, a steelmaker or an airline has a far better chance of meeting its climate goals in a country boosting the development of green steel or sustainable aviation fuel.This net zero push should also be bolstered by reporting and regulatory measures due to be launched or implemented this year.New EU directives — one that entered into force in January and another being finalised — are set to tighten the way companies operating in the region adopt and report on climate transition plans.In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission is due to finalise separate climate disclosure rules in coming months.Also, the first set of global climate reporting standards is due to be published in June by a board established by the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation.Meanwhile, financial regulators around the world are cracking down on corporate greenwashing with growing vigour. Expect to see more of the same as investors and green campaigners alike press for such action.“Regulators are stepping up because there is demand on the ground,” says Christina Ng of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.The UN has added its weight too. Earlier this month, its secretary-general, António Guterres, said that any business with a 2050 net zero pledge ought to have a transition plan in place by September, containing “credible and ambitious targets for 2025 and 2030”.Those targets should, he added, meet standards devised by a UN expert group which has specified that companies should, for example, cut their own emissions, rather than offset them with “cheap credits that often lack integrity”.Separately, the International Organization for Standardisation has issued guidelines for organisations setting net zero targets that should help stamp out misleading claims about supposedly green products.Researchers who monitor net zero pledges caution that more action is needed. As Oxford university’s Professor Tom Hale says, “We’ve made good progress in defining what good looks like. Now we need to do it.” Still, 2023 is set to be a year remembered for progress in climate action that will end up being impossible to ignore.

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SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian shares slipped on Monday as markets were forced to price in ever-loftier peaks for U.S. and European interest rates, slugging bonds globally and pushing the dollar to multi-week highs.Investors are braced for more challenging U.S. data including the closely-watched ISM measures of manufacturing and services, the latter being especially important following January’s unexpected spike in activity.There are also at least six Federal Reserve policy makers on the speaking diary this week to offer a running commentary on the likelihood of further rate hikes.China has manufacturing surveys and the National People’s Congress kicks off at the weekend and will see new economic policy targets and policies, as well as a reshuffling of government officials. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.5%, having shed 2.6% last week. Japan’s Nikkei eased 0.4% and South Korea 0.9%.S&P 500 futures were flat, while Nasdaq futures edged up 0.1%. Strong data on spending and core prices saw the S&P 500 crack support at 4,000 on Friday and retrace 61.2% of this year’s rally.Fed futures now have rates peaking around 5.42%, implying at least three more hikes from the current 4.50% to 4.75% band. Markets have also nudged up the likely rate tops for the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.Bruce Kasman, head of economic research at JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), has added another quarter-point hike to the ECB outlook, taking it to 100 basis points. Germany’s 2-year bond yield broke above 3.0% on Friday for the first time since 2008.”The risk is clearly skewed toward greater action from the Fed,” says Kasman.”Demand is proving resilient in the face of tightening and lingering damage to supply from the pandemic is limiting the moderation in inflation,” he added. “The transmission of the rapid shift in policy still underway also raises the risk of a recession not intended by central banks.”The Atlanta Fed’s influential GDP Now tracker has the U.S economy growing an annualised 2.7% in the first quarter, showing no slowdown from the December quarter.Higher rates and yields stretch valuations for equities, especially those with high PE ratios and low dividend payouts, which includes much of the tech sector.Shares in the United States trade at a price to earnings multiples of around 17.5 times forward earnings, compared to 12 times for non-U.S. shares.Ten-year Treasury bonds also yield more than twice the estimated dividend yield of the S&P 500 Index, and with much less risk.With the earnings season almost over, around 69% of earnings have surprised on the upside, compared to a historical average of 76%, and annual earnings growth is running around -2%.The upward shift in Fed expectations has been a boon for the U.S. dollar, which climbed 1.3% on a basket of currencies last week to last stand at 105.220.The euro was pinned at $1.0548, after touching a seven-week low of $1.0536 on Friday. The dollar scaled a nine-week top on the yen to stand at 136.40, aided in part by dovish comments from top policy makers at the Bank of Japan.The rise in the dollar and yields has been a burden for gold, which shed 1.7% last week and was last lying at $1,812 an ounce. [GOL/]Oil prices edged higher as the prospect of lower Russian exports was balanced by rising inventories in the United States and concerns over global economic activity. [O/R]Brent gained 35 cents to $83.51 a barrel, while U.S. crude rose 34 cents to $76.66 per barrel. More