China Hits Back, Ireland’s Brexit Woes, Indonesia Grows: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) --

Welcome to Monday, Europe. Here's the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help get your day started:

• In a stark escalation of the trade war that has roiled financial markets and weighed on economic growth worldwide, Beijing allowed the yuan to tumble to its weakest level in a decade against the dollar and asked state-owned companies to suspend imports of U.S. agricultural products
• Ireland's biggest companies are getting a taste of the pain that could come from the U.K. crashing out of the European Union without a deal. Meanwhile, U.K.'s construction industry, which accounts for 6% of the economy and employs a similar number of people as manufacturing, has a lot to do to prepare for the Brexit deadline
• The head of Germany's banking lobby expressed some hope that the European Central Bank will help lenders to soften the impact of negative interest rates, while criticizing the ECB for signaling plans to cut rates even further
• Romania is set to prolong more than a year of steady interest rates, looking past the European Union's fastest inflation to take its cue from the global shift toward looser monetary policy
• Kristalina Georgieva, the World Bank‘s chief executive, was selected by European governments as their candidate to head the International Monetary Fund following an acrimonious process in which the result was initially contested by some member states
• Indonesia's economy expanded at a slightly faster pace in the second quarter than economists forecast, indicating some resilience in the face of mounting global risks
• Australia's central bank chief Philip Lowe is leaving open the door for further rate cuts in order to prevent a wave of global easing from neutralizing his back-to-back reductions and boosting the currency. Also, this week looms as a key one for Asian financial markets with five central banks set to hand down decisions that may set the tone for the rest of the year
• As the financial world watches the White House turn up the heat on the Federal Reserve in Washington, another Fed drama has been playing out right on Wall Street's doorstep

To contact the reporter on this story: Anirban Nag in Mumbai at anag8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net, Karthikeyan Sundaram, Pradeep Kurup

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.