Abenomics

Japan's central bank left its ultra-easy monetary policy unchanged in its last meeting before Governor Haruhiko Kuroda steps down and is replaced by economics professor Kazuo Ueda.

While most analysts expected the Bank of Japan to stay the course in Kuroda's final policy decision, some had speculated about a surprise tweak.

Japan's consumer prices rose 4 percent in December from a year earlier, a level not seen since December 1981, fueled in part by higher energy bills, government data showed on Jan. 20.

The acceleration came after a 3.7 percent increase in prices in November, and the data from the internal affairs ministry showed inflation for the 2022 calendar year stood at 2.3 percent.

The GDP growth accelerated from 7.3 percent in the first quarter of 2022 to 7.6 percent in the April-June period, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) have showed.

On a seasonally and calendar adjusted basis, the economy grew 2.1 percent in the second quarter from January-March, up from the quarterly growth of 0.7 percent recorded in the previous quarter.

The yen hit its lowest level against the dollar in two decades yesterday, extending recent falls as the gap widens between Japan's ultra-loose monetary policy and U.S. tightening.

Despite being traditionally considered a safe-haven currency, uncertainty fueled by the war in Ukraine has not caused the yen to strengthen.

The Bundesbank has said the latest wave of the coronavirus pandemic risked pushing the German economy - Europe's largest - into a technical recession before staging a recovery from the second quarter.

Spain's economy grew by 5.0 percent in 2021, showing a remarkable bounceback from a year earlier but below the government's target, an initial estimate by the National Statistics Institute (INE) showed on Jan. 28.

Turkey's economy grew 7.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2021, meeting expectations on the strength of retail demand, manufacturing and exports, according to official data announced on Nov. 30.

Strong GDP growth of 16.2% in the second quarter compared to 2020, following in the footsteps of the rest of the eurozone economies.

Ljubljana – Slovenia’s GDP increased by 16.3% in year-on-year comparison in the second quarter of the year, the Statistics Office reported on Tuesday. The growth was powered by household spending and gross investment. Foreign trade was up significantly as well.

The European Commission released Wednesday its Summer 2021 interim Economic Forecast about the European economy, according to which Bulgaria's real GDP growth is expected to reach 4.6 per cent in 2021 and 4.1 per cent in 2022.