Economy

WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday moved to lift some Trump-era restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba even as it fended off criticism for blocking the Communist-run island and long-time foe from attending a regional summit this week.The amended regulations, set to be published in the U.S. Federal Register on Thursday, will provide further fine print around a broader easing of U.S. restrictions on Cuba first announced by the administration of President Joe Biden in May.A Treasury Department official said publication of the new regulations was purposefully aligned with the U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. The conference was initially conceived as a platform to showcase U.S. leadership and support for Latin America. But that agenda has been partially undermined by a boycott by some regional leaders upset at Washington’s decision to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.Washington has said it has concerns about human rights and a lack of democracy in those three nations.The Cuba-related rule changes this week allow U.S. citizens to once again travel to Cuba on group educational trips hosted by U.S.-based travel companies or organizations, and to attend professional meetings and conferences in Cuba.The regulations also lift a $1,000 quarterly limit on family remittances to Cuban nationals who are close relatives and allow U.S. citizens to send funds to non-family members on the island.The Biden administration last week removed restrictions on flights to Cuba imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump, including ending a prohibition on U.S. airline flights to Cuban airports other than Havana.The United States has also promised to ramp up the number of immigrant visas it issues to Cuban nationals in a bid to combat a growing migration crisis at its border.Cuba´s government has welcomed the changes but says they fall far short of lifting the Cold War-era embargo imposed on it by the United States, which it blames for the island’s economic crisis. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. inflation could remain above the Federal Reserve’s targets for a long time based on current projections, and there is a risk of inflation expectations “de-anchoring,” International Monetary Fund First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said on Wednesday.Based on current projections of what the interest rate path may be, inflation will stay above the Fed’s 2% target “for a long time,” said Gopinath, speaking at an online event hosted by the Financial Times.”That’s an environment that we’re not used to being in, you could risk their inflation expectations de-anchoring,” she said.Gopinath spoke of an “incredibly narrow” path that would allow for the tightness in goods and labor markets to unwind without rates rising much more.However, she said, “overall, the risks are towards the possibility that this will require much more steeper increases in rates.”The Fed has raised rates twice so far this year and 50-basis point hikes are priced in for both its meeting next week and the following one in July.U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said separately on Wednesday that the current annual inflation rate of 8% is “unacceptable” for the United States and 2% is an “appropriate target.” More

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) increased to 5.40% from 5.33%.
Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 7% for the week and were 21% lower than the same week one year ago.
Refinance demand dropped 6% for the week and was down 75% year over year.

Mortgage rates are back on the upswing, after a brief decline in May, and the housing market is still suffering from a lack of listings. As a result, mortgage demand continues to drop.
Total mortgage application volume fell 6.5% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Demand hit the lowest level in 22 years.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) increased to 5.40% from 5.33%, with points rising to 0.60 from 0.51 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment.
Refinance demand, which is most sensitive to weekly rate moves, fell another 6% for the week and was 75% lower than the same week one year ago. The vast majority of mortgage holders now have rates considerably lower than the current one, and even those who would like to pull cash out of their homes are choosing second mortgages, rather than refinancing their first liens.

Real estate agents Rosa Arrigo, center, and Elisa Rosen, right, work an open house in West Hempstead, New York.
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“While rates were still lower than they were four weeks ago, they remained high enough to still suppress refinance activity. Only government refinances saw a slight increase last week,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist.
Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 7% for the week and were 21% lower than the same week one year ago.
“The purchase market has suffered from persistently low housing inventory and the jump in mortgage rates over the past two months. These worsening affordability challenges have been particularly hard on prospective first-time buyers,” Kan said.

Mortgage rates moved even higher to start this week, according to a separate survey by Mortgage News Daily. Rates have been in a narrow range for several weeks after moving decidedly higher in the previous months.
“There’s some chance that the upper boundaries of that range end up being a ceiling for rates, but that will depend on inflation and other incoming economic data,” wrote Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. “With a key inflation report set to release on Friday morning, the potential for volatility remains high.”

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Inflation is upending voter confidence and posing a glaring political liability that looms over the Biden administration’s major policy decisions.WASHINGTON — President Biden was at a private meeting discussing student debt forgiveness this year when, as happens uncomfortably often these days, the conversation came back to inflation.“He said with everything he does, Republicans are going to attack him and use the word ‘inflation,’” said Representative Tony Cárdenas, Democrat of California, referring to Mr. Biden’s meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in April. Mr. Cárdenas said Mr. Biden was aware he would be attacked over rising prices “no matter what issue we’re talking about.”The comment underscored how today’s rapid price increases, the fastest since the 1980s, pose a glaring political liability that looms over every major policy decision the White House makes — leaving Mr. Biden and his colleagues on the defensive as officials discover that there is no good way to talk to voters about inflation.The administration has at times splintered internally over how to discuss price increases and has revised its inflation-related message several times as talking points fail to resonate and new data comes in. Some Democrats in Congress have urged the White House to strike a different — and more proactive — tone ahead of the November midterm elections.But the reality the White House faces is a hard one: There is little politicians can do to quickly bring price increases to heel. Federal Reserve policy is the nation’s main solution to inflation, but the central bank tempers price gains by making money more expensive to borrow to cool off demand, a slow and potentially painful process for the economy.“For a president, inflation is the problem from hell — you can’t win,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the founding director of the Center for Effective Public Management. “Because it’s so difficult economically, politically it is even worse: There’s nothing you can do in the short run to solve it.”Consumer prices increased by 8.3 percent in the year through April, and data this week is expected to show inflation at 8.2 percent in May. Inflation averaged 1.6 percent annual gains in the five years leading up to the pandemic, making today’s pace of increase painfully high by comparison. A gallon of gas, one of the most tangible household costs, hit an average of $4.92 this week. Consumer confidence has plummeted as families pay more for everyday purchases and as the Fed raises interest rates to cool the economy, which increases the risk of a recession.A gallon of gas surpassed $5 at a Sunoco station in Sloatsburg, N.Y., last month.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesThe White House has long realized that rising prices could sink Mr. Biden’s support, with that risk telegraphed in a series of confidential memos sent to Mr. Biden last year by one of his lead pollsters, John Anzalone. Inflation has only continued to fuel frustration among voters, according to a separate memo compiled by Mr. Anzalone’s team last month, which showed the president’s low approval rating on the economy rivaling only his approach to immigration.“Economic sentiment among the public remains poor, with most worried about both inflation and the possibility of a recession in the coming months,” according to the memo, dated May 20. The information was sent to “interested parties,” and it was not clear if the White House had received or reviewed the memo.The polling data shows that about eight in 10 Americans “consider the national economy to be in poor condition” and that “concerns are high about the potential for an economic recession in the near future.”Economic anxieties have been echoed by members of Congress, leading academics and pop culture standard bearers. “When y’all think they going to announce that we going into a recession?” Cardi B, the Grammy-winning rapper, wrote in a tweet that went viral this weekend.The White House knows it is in a tricky position, and the administration’s approach to explaining inflation has evolved over time. Officials spent the early stages of the current price burst largely describing price pressures as temporary.When it became clear that rising costs were lasting, administration officials began to diverge internally on how to frame that phenomenon. While it was clear that much of the upward pressure on prices came from supply chain shortages exacerbated by continued waves of the coronavirus, some of it also tied back to strong consumer demand. That big spending had been enabled, in part, by the government’s stimulus packages, including direct checks to households, expanded unemployment insurance and other benefits.Some economists in the White House have begun to emphasize that inflation was a trade-off: To the extent that Mr. Biden’s stimulus spending spurred more inflation, it also aided economic growth and a faster recovery.“Inflation is absolutely a problem, and it’s critical to address it,” Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, recently told members of Congress. “But I think at the same time, we should recognize how successful that plan was in leading to an economy where instead of having a large number of workers utterly unable to find jobs, exactly the opposite is true.”Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said she supports relaxing tariffs on Chinese goods to ease prices.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesBut the president’s more political aides have tended to sharply minimize that the March 2021 package, known as the American Rescue Plan, helped to goose inflation, even as they have claimed credit for strong economic growth.“Some have a curious obsession with exaggerating impact of the Rescue Plan while ignoring the degree high inflation is global,” Gene Sperling, a senior White House adviser overseeing the implementation of the stimulus package, wrote on Twitter last week, adding that the law “has had very marginal impact on inflation.”Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, acknowledged in an interview last week that there were some disagreements among White House economic officials when it came to how to talk about and respond to inflation, but he portrayed that as a positive — and as something that is not leading to any kind of dysfunction.“If there wasn’t healthy disagreement, debate and people feeling comfortable bringing issues and ideas to the table, then I think we would be not serving the president and the public interest well,” he said.He also pushed back on the idea that the administration was deeply divided on the March 2021 package’s aftereffects, saying in a separate emailed comment that “there is agreement across the administration that many factors contributed to inflation, and that inflation has been driven by elevated demand and constrained supply across the globe.”How to portray the Biden administration’s stimulus spending is far from the only challenge the White House faces. As price increases last, Democrats have grappled with how to discuss their plans to combat them.The president and his top political aides have trotted out a few main talking points, including blaming President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for what Mr. Biden calls the “Putin price hike,” pointing to deficit reduction as a way to lower inflation and arguing that Republicans have a bad plan to deal with rising costs. Mr. Biden regularly acknowledges the pain that higher prices are causing and has emphasized that the problem of taming inflation rests largely with the Fed, an independent entity whose work he has promised not to interfere with.The administration has also highlighted that inflation is widespread globally, and that the United States is better off than many other nations.Student Loans: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4Corinthian Colleges. More

Good eveningTwo heavyweight reports on prospects for the world economy make grim reading, highlighting the devastating effect of the war in Ukraine on top of the damage wrought by the pandemic.The OECD, in its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook today, warned of the “hefty price” of taking a stance against Russia’s invasion, forecasting lower growth and high inflation, with poorer countries hit particularly hard.The club of rich nations cut its global growth forecast for this year to 3 per cent, down from 4.5 per cent in December, even lower than the IMF’s recent estimate of 3.6 per cent. For 2023, growth would be still lower at 2.8 per cent. The OECD expects inflation to average 8.5 per cent across the bloc in 2022 and 6 per cent in 2023, with energy price rises spreading out into other areas.The OECD singled out the UK, which it said would experience the weakest growth in the G20 outside Russia next year, hit by a unique combination of high inflation, rising interest rates, increasing taxes and “probably a bit of Brexit”. The forecast was 3.6 per cent for this year and zero for 2023 as the economy stagnated “due to depressed demand”.The organisation warned against letting poor countries shoulder the burden of the war, particularly the threat to food supplies, a danger also highlighted today by Turkey’s foreign minister. Commodities correspondent Emiko Terazono says the west must move fast to tackle the crisis as grain importers teeter on the edge of catastrophe, while Russian president Vladimir Putin tries to throw the blame on to western sanctions. Today the Kremlin rejected claims that war was fuelling the situation.The OECD report follows yesterday’s Global Economic Prospects update from the World Bank, which highlighted the damage from the war to developing countries and the prospects of a debt crisis, with 75mn more people pushed into extreme poverty than expected in 2019. It likened global conditions to those of the 1970s, when inflation led to steep interest rate rises and a global recession.Warning signs are already visible in global finance with emerging markets hit by the worst sell off in decades as investors rush to safety.The war in Ukraine meant stark choices for the west, said OECD chief economist Laurence Boone. “There is a price [of Russia’s invasion] and the questions for policymakers are, how high is the price, and how should it be shared. If you don’t share it well, the price will be higher.”Latest newsUK’s biggest fertiliser producer CF Industries to shut plant as energy costs biteUK decides against imposing direct rule in the British Virgin IslandsMishcon IPO stalled for ‘foreseeable future’ due to poor market conditionsFor up-to-the-minute news updates, visit our live blogNeed to know: the economyThe war in Ukraine means the EU may have to revise its seven-year budget sooner than planned, reports our Europe Express newsletter. Frankfurt bureau chief Martin Arnold previews tomorrow’s policy meeting of the European Central Bank as it prepares to end eight years of bond-buying and negative interest rates, while economics editor Chris Giles warns of a miserable few months ahead. Latest for the UK and EuropeIndustry data showed UK retail sales fell 1.1 per cent in May, the biggest drop since January last year, as consumers tightened their belts and reconsidered major purchases such as furniture and electronics. The trend was also highlighted in separate data from payments company Barclaycard.So much for the UK government’s “levelling up” agenda. Official data show London still outperforms the rest of the country in economic growth. Northern Ireland, which is still in the EU single market for goods, is the only other region back above pre-pandemic levels. However, UK ministers are still threatening to rip up the protocol which guarantees the province’s special status, a move that could also see the UK booted out of the EU Horizon research programme.The International Energy Agency warned that Europe, especially industrial gas users, could experience energy rationing from the combination of a cold winter and resurgent demand in China.The Turkish lira continued to slide after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated his intention to keep cutting interest rates despite surging inflation, which hit 73.5 per cent last month.Global latestIn another example of the gathering gloom for the world economy, Bridgewater, the world’s biggest hedge fund, is betting on a sell-off in US and European corporate bonds this year. Greg Jensen, its co-chief investment officer, also warned that the biggest risk facing the US economy was that the Federal Reserve was effectively out of ammo.US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen urged Congress to do more to ease the burden of inflation and build on proposals such as reducing prescription drug prices and improving access to affordable housing.Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda apologised today for his claim that consumers had become “tolerant” of price rises, the same day that the yen hit a 20-year low against the dollar, driving up prices of crucial imported goods. The soaring cost of living is likely to be a key factor in elections to the country’s upper house in July.Australia has increased interest rates by 50 basis points, the biggest jump since February 2000, to curb the surge in inflation. Up to now, price increases have been lower than in many other countries, but jumps in food and fuel costs have started to dent consumer confidence. Social media companies in Brazil, which is gearing up for a potentially turbulent general election in October, are cracking down on fake news, said to be a key factor in the 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro. The far-right president will meet US president Joe Biden this week at the Summit of the Americas.Need to know: businessSwiss bank Credit Suisse issued its third profit warning since January, highlighting damage to its investment banking division by market volatility due to the war in Ukraine.Spanish group Inditex reported an 80 per cent jump in profits for the first quarter of €760mn as sales at the world’s biggest clothing retailer passed pre-pandemic levels. In the US, changing consumer behaviour was blamed for a second profit warning at Target in less than a month. Like its rival Walmart, the retailer has found it difficult to pass on higher prices to consumers and has been hit by increased freight, fuel and labour costs. Part of the problem, says the Lex column, is that poor inventory management means the company is stuck with piles of goods it cannot sell, but this could mean good news for off-price discount chains such as TJX.After more than a decade of discussions, the EU agreed a new law on a single standard charger — USB-C — for smartphones, laptop computers and accessories, which it says will save consumers €250mn. The move is a blow for Apple which uses proprietary Lightning connectors.Fintech companies in the insurance sector are among the biggest casualties in the recent sell-off of tech stocks, as investors ditch high-growth businesses for those that generate reliable prospects. The self-styled disrupters now have to persuade a much more sceptical market that their business models are worth sticking with.UK online car seller Cazoo cut hundreds of jobs, blaming rising inflation and interest rates for a slowdown in investment. Such consumer-facing companies are likely to be badly affected by a recession which could follow the cost of living crisis.Small trades are sparking big price swings in the world’s biggest capital markets with liquidity at its worst level since the early days of the pandemic. The fraught conditions have coincided with the shift in the global economy towards slowing growth, rising interest rates and surging inflation, catching many portfolio managers off-guard.Apple entered the buy now, pay later market with a new scheme that allows consumers to pay for purchases in four instalments over six weeks without incurring interest. FT deputy editor Patrick Jenkins warned that the sector was getting out of control: “BNPL operators are money lenders, pure and simple. It is time to regulate this industry properly before it blows up in all our faces,” he wrote.FT reporters look at the future for the energy industry in Russia, home to a quarter of the world’s gas reserves and more than 5 per cent of its crude oil. Gas and oil continue to flow but long-term decline looks likely as foreign partners pull out and export destinations shrink. Business papers rarely report on porn even though it owns a big corner of the internet. The FT decided to change that: our new podcast series Hot Money looks at the decision makers and dealmakers behind the industry. What we found will surprise you.The World of WorkPoliticians in Brussels have agreed a deal to ensure workers across the EU are protected by adequate minimum wages and the promotion of collective bargaining. “This is a good day for social Europe,” said Nicolas Schmit, European commissioner for jobs and social rights, adding that it was “especially important at a time when many households are worried about making ends meet”. In spite of — or perhaps because of — new technology, people now say they are working harder to tighter deadlines under greater levels of tension, writes columnist Sarah O’Connor. This intensification of work could be one reason why the campaign for a four-day working week is gaining traction, she argues.Hybrid working means the emotional bridge provided by the best middle managers is becoming more important then ever, says Michael Skapinker. As long as they avoid “kissing up and kicking down” the oft-derided group is crucial to a company’s success, he maintains.Middle managers are also crucial in overseeing employee wellbeing. Our latest Working It podcast discusses whether hybrid working is making it harder to take time off sick and whether the growing acknowledgment of mental health problems means we ought to change the way we think about the need for time off for rest and recovery.Get the latest worldwide picture with our vaccine trackerAnd finally…FT editor Roula Khalaf interviewed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy about his aims in the fight against Russia and what a peace deal might look like. Watch the video.

Video: Volodymyr Zelenskyy: ‘No one is humiliating Ukraine. They are killing us’ More

The writer is Chazen Professor of Global Business at Columbia Business SchoolCombating inflation has been on President Joe Biden’s mind lately. But any mention of the high tariffs on Chinese imports that he inherited from the Trump administration has been critically absent from these discussions. Between 2018 and 2019, the US and China engaged in a trade war that raised tariffs on thousands of internationally traded products. The import tariffs imposed by the US, and the Chinese retaliation on US exporters, jointly targeted 3.6 per cent of GDP. Their potential removal is currently subject to fierce debate. Unlike most issues, US trade policy cuts across party lines. Advocates for protectionism argue the tariffs are critical for building industrial capacity to counter China’s manufacturing prowess, and that they have not contributed to higher prices. But these supporters cannot have it both ways: tariffs can only help manufacturing jobs if they raise prices. If producers benefit from higher tariffs, it is precisely because consumers are made worse off by them. Suppose a car mechanic chooses to import tyres from China for $100 apiece rather than the slightly more expensive American version. Would the American producer benefit when the US government raises tariffs on the Chinese tyres by 25 per cent?The answer hinges on what happens to the after-tariff price of imports. At one extreme, if the Chinese exporter cannot find another buyer, it may reduce its price and leave the after-tariff price at $100. In this case, the government collects the tariff revenue, and the car mechanic experiences no direct impact. This is what Trump meant when he declared that the Chinese were paying for the tariffs. But because the after-tariff price has not changed, the American tyre producer, who lost business to the Chinese supplier, does not directly benefit. Consider, instead, the extreme where the after-tariff price rises to $125. Now the car mechanic is adversely affected. Since import prices have increased, the tariffs shield the US tyre producer from import competition. The gains to the tyre producer have come at the expense of the mechanic.This illustrates how tariffs favour producers at the expense of consumers. But to what extent this happens hinges on the after-tariff price. Only the data can tell us the real world impact. In a rare instance of economists agreeing, peer-reviewed studies by several teams conclude that the second extreme has materialised: after-tariff prices went up by the full magnitude of the tariffs. US consumers have borne the brunt of the trade war. These price increases should benefit American producers. Unfortunately, the answer is more complex. Today, most global trade occurs in intermediate parts rather than final goods. When it comes to tyres, the US also raised tariffs on carbon black — a key input — by 25 per cent. This increases manufacturing costs and undoes some of the benefits of protection. Additionally, China has not just sat silently by. It unleashed retaliatory tariffs on $100bn of US exports, including tyres. One study found that these higher inputs and tariff retaliations offset the benefits of protection for producers. Economists at the Federal Reserve found that manufacturing employment fell. Another study found that exports increased among ‘bystander’ countries like Malaysia and Mexico, not the US. The evidence confirms what economists had argued at the beginning of the trade war: tariffs are not an effective policy to bolster US manufacturing. Instead, they ultimately raised prices for everyone, with the retaliations hitting the Midwest particularly hard. Overall, the US economy is worse off. Reversing the tariffs will reduce prices for consumers. The impact on price levels would be modest since imports are only about 15 per cent of US GDP. But ending the trade war is the most immediate and effective policy in Biden’s mission to bring relief to the American consumer. More

MUMBAI (Reuters) – Standard Chartered (OTC:SCBFF) Chief Executive Bill Winters expects central banks’ fight against surging inflation, driven by structural cost pressures such as wage growth, to result in a “relatively shallow and short” recession by early next year.”I think central banks have to take this inflation problem head on,” Winters told the Reuters Global Markets Forum (GMF) on Wednesday, adding that a strong financial system supported by underleveraged consumers and corporations will aid a faster recovery compared to the global financial crisis.”We’ve had two real world stress tests in the last couple of years – the pandemic and a major European war,” he said. Standard Chartered continues to grow in China but at a slower pace, as COVID-19 lockdowns stifled its expansion, Winters said on the sidelines of Temasek’s annual Ecosperity sustainability conference in Singapore. Comparing Singapore’s quick return to pre-pandemic norms, Winters said he expected the bank to return to “good solid growth in China and Hong Kong” once restrictions on travel and consumer activities were relaxed.Winters described the job market as extremely competitive and said wages were also on the rise. With the bank’s headcount near 2019-levels, there was no “belt tightening” in prospect, he said. That is in contrast to Switzerland’s Credit Suisse, which said it would accelerate cost cuts to offset a likely Q2 loss.”Given the very hot job market, we don’t think we’re going to need to lay off any meaningful number of people,” Winters said.Winters is positive on StanChart’s financial markets, payments and cash management businesses which he said will be driven by robust trade within Asia, Middle East and Africa.He was also positive on emerging markets, particularly in Asia and South Asia, on expectations of returning capital inflows as the region’s “growth story is re-established as structural.”($1 = 0.7968 pounds)(Join GMF on Refinitiv Messenger: https://refini.tv/33uoFoQ) More

The rouble has become the world’s best-performing currency so far this year, boosted artificially by capital controls and supported by high prices for commodities, Russia’s key exports. At 1211 GMT, the rouble was 2.2% stronger against the dollar at 59.66 on the Moscow Exchange, leaving the relatively narrow range of 60.0-62.5 it was in over the past few days after rapid swings in May.It firmed more than 3% to 63.47 against the euro.The rouble showed little reaction to Russia’s decision to relax some capital controls, which have been steering the currency since February after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.Weeks after the rouble rallied to a near five-year high against the euro, Russia allowed export-focused companies to transfer forex to their overseas accounts under certain conditions, a move seen to be aimed at helping to pay for imports and preventing the rouble from strengthening.At the same time, the central bank raised the ceiling for cross-border transactions for individuals, saying Russian residents and non-residents from “friendly” states would be able to channel abroad the equivalent of up to $150,000 a month, up from the previous limit of $50,000.”The rouble rate is still determined mostly by the trade balance, where the situation is not really changing: exports remain relatively high, while imports have collapsed,” said Evgeny Suvorov, economist at CentroCreditBank.”The further ease in capital controls is not likely to prevent the rouble from strengthening, especially heading toward the end of the month, when exporters will be ratcheting up their hard currency sales,” Sberbank CIB said in a note.The rouble may see some downside pressure from lower interest rates at home. A majority of analysts polled by Reuters expect a 100-basis-point rate cut to 10% as the bank tries to make lending more affordable amid sluggish consumer demand and a pause in inflation.Sanctions and Russia’s efforts to meet its sovereign debt obligations remain in focus.European Union countries last week agreed on their sixth package of sanctions against Moscow over what it terms its “special military operation” in Ukraine, including phasing out all imports of Russian seaborne crude oil and petroleum products in six to eight months.Russian stock indexes were up.The dollar-denominated RTS index rose 4% to 1,227.3 points. The rouble-based MOEX Russian index rose 1.4% to 2,323.5 points. More