Powell’s Appearance, British Budget, Xi’s Big Plan: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Thursday, Europe. Here's the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

• Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will probably seek to convince suddenly skeptical financial markets on Thursday that the central bank will be ultra-patient in pulling back its support for the economy
• Separately, the Fed says the U.S. economy expanded modestly in the first two months and sentiment among business owners is picking up as vaccinations bolstered the prospects for economic growth
• The U.K. government put off steps to tackle the country's record budget deficit for another two years, focusing on stimulus for a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic
• Bloomberg Economics says the new U.K. government budget extends significant near-term support to help drive the recovery
• China begins its biggest political meeting of the year Friday, laying plans that could propel the economy into the world's biggest this decade
• A year of border closures and a successful economic recovery is causing Australia to reassess its embrace of globalization
• There's nothing like a supply shock to illuminate the tectonic shifts in an industry, which is now laying bare the market power of South Korea and Taiwan firms in the $400 billion semiconductor industry
• Ukraine must decide whether to raise interest rates to combat quickening inflation or keep them at a post-communist low as another surge in coronavirus cases threatens its economic recovery. Analysts are split
• The likely extension of Tokyo's state of emergency is worth the tradeoff against the risk of a renewed uptick in virus cases that could threaten the staging of the Summer Olympics, according to economists
• Hong Kong disappeared entirely from the latest edition of the annual Heritage Foundation ranking of the world's freest economies

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