ECONOMY

US Treasury chief Janet Yellen warned during a visit to China on Friday that Beijing's subsidies for industry could pose a risk to global economic resilience.

It is the communist country's strongest Q1 growth since 2019, but still well off Standard Chartered Bank's forecast of 6.1 percent.

SARB Governor Lesetja Kganyago said that this decision was unanimous, revealing that the committee "noted a range of risks" before announcing this verdict.

The Bank of England is widely expected to keep its main interest rate at a 16-year high Thursday, rejecting a cut as inflation remains well above target despite recent slowing.

Asian markets mostly rose Wednesday as traders tracked another record day on Wall Street, with focus squarely on the Federal Reserve's policy meeting.

The Bank of Japan's outlier policy of negative rates and massive asset purchases was aimed at jump-starting economic growth and price rises after the "lost decades" of stagnation and deflation.

Her comments came after JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently refused to rule out the chance of stagflation, a dreaded scenario where economic stagnation meets rising costs.

While price increases have fallen from their peak in 2022, households are still feeling the pinch from costs of living -- adding pressure on President Joe Biden as he tries to win over voters on his economic policies while running for reelection this year.

Top officials have been upfront about the myriad challenges China is facing, admitting that a modest five percent growth goal will not be easy and that "hidden risks" are dragging the economy down. But they have supplied few details about how they plan to tackle the problems.

Beijing's leadership on Tuesday laid out an objective of "around five percent" gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year -- a dream of many developed Western nations but for China a far cry from the breakneck expansion that powered its rise.

After the ECB launched an unprecedented campaign of monetary tightening to tame runaway consumer prices, eurozone inflation has been slowing steadily from a peak of over 10 percent in late 2022.

Huge giveaways are not expected, however, as stubbornly-high inflation hikes repayments on state borrowing, undermining the ability to stimulate the recession-hit UK economy.

Output is now seen expanding by a mere 0.2 percent this year, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said at a Berlin press conference. Last autumn, the government was still expecting 1.3 percent growth.

Domestic spending on entertainment, dining and travel soared during this year's "Golden Week", which officially ended on Saturday, according to a statement from Beijing's Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Sunday.

The Fed swiftly raised and then held its benchmark lending rate in a largely successful bid to bring inflation down from multi-decade highs towards its long-term target of two percent.

Once forecast to become the world's biggest economy, Japan slipped below Germany last year to fourth place, official data showed Thursday, although India is projected to leapfrog both later this decade.

Although the Frankfurt-based ECB has held rates steady so far in 2024, it is widely expected to begin cutting rates later this year in the face of slowing consumer prices and a weakening eurozone economy.

While economists predicted that the recession could be short-lived, the data is a big setback for Sunak, who has placed economic growth as a key priority.

Higher gas and electricity bills were the main upward contributor to the rate, but this was offset by falling prices for furniture, food and non-alcoholic beverages.

Officials have struggled for months to kickstart economic growth as they battle a range of headwinds, including a prolonged property-sector crisis, soaring youth unemployment and a global slowdown that is hammering demand for Chinese goods.

Rail, bus and airport workers have walked out one after another amid bitter salary negotiations in a country that usually prides itself on good labor relations.

Beijing has pledged more funding for the Maldives since pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu took power in November. Muizzu thanked China last month for its "selfless assistance" for development funds after a visit to Beijing.

The OECD now expects a 2.9 percent expansion, up from 2.7 percent in its previous forecast in November, as it sharply lifted the outlook for the United States, the world's top economy.

The US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank (ECB) and others have held interest rates elevated in recent months in an attempt to bring inflation back down toward target, following a post-pandemic surge in prices.

The world's second-largest economy last year saw some of its slowest growth in decades, as a debt crisis in the property sector added to geopolitical tensions and weakening global demand.

After a much-anticipated meeting, Fed policymakers acknowledged that inflation was going in the right direction and that they expected to begin lowering borrowing costs this year from their two-decade highs.

Following a post-pandemic surge in inflation, the Fed rapidly hiked interest rates in a bid to bring the price-increase measurement back down towards its goal of two percent -- with surprising success.

The eurozone economy narrowly avoided a technical recession in the second half of 2023 but stagnated in the final three months of the year, official data showed Tuesday.

The European Central Bank is expected to stand pat Thursday and call for patience in the ongoing battle against inflation, pushing back against market hopes of rapid interest rate cuts.