Author: Steven Sahiounie

Oil prices rose today, Friday, after a wave of losses recorded this week, and prices fell in light of fears of an economic recession, which will affect the demand for crude. By 09:31 Moscow time, US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 1.27% to $69.43 a barrel. While Brent crude futures rose 1.32% to $73.46 a barrel, according to Bloomberg agency data. Despite the rise, black gold prices are heading towards recording weekly losses, global crude “Brent” by 8.5%, and US crude by more than 10%. This article was originally published by RT.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) world price index rose in April for the first time in a year. The organization said that the index, which measures the prices of the most traded food commodities globally, averaged 127.2 points last month, compared to 126.5 in March. The March reading was initially at 126.9 points. The agency added that the rise in April reflected an increase in the prices of sugar, meat and rice, which offset the impact of declines in the prices of cereals, milk and vegetable oils. …

Many countries in the world are trying to achieve economic growth and turn the course of deflation into growth, and sometimes economic activities are financed by borrowing and borrowing. Most of the time, borrowing is through government issuance of bonds in order to bridge the gap in the budget, and the result is that countries incur debts. The debt-to-GDP ratio is an important economic measure that is usually used to determine the stability and health of a country’s economy. This indicator is usually evaluated along with other indicators, such as per capita GDP and economic growth. The following is a…

Economic analyst Hanan Ramses considered that Egypt’s resources and capabilities were greatly affected by conflicting internal economic decisions, the fluctuation of the Arab position, and the increase in the number of arrivals to Egypt due to the wars in their countries. Ramses indicated, in an interview with RT, that after reaching an Egyptian-Arab understanding regarding Gulf investments in Egypt, there was a semi-stop in this file, which foreshadowed more dollar scarcity after Egypt was counting on the flow of this currency. Also, the state’s failure to complete the offerings program and activate the “state ownership policy document” mechanism had an…

Fitch downgraded Egypt’s rating from “B+” to “B”, while converting its outlook to negative, indicating that it may downgrade the rating further in the coming months due to the country’s economic problems. And the credit rating agency spoke in a statement about the increase in external financing risks in light of the high financing needs and the tightening of external financing conditions, and said in a statement that “all of this comes against the backdrop of a state of extreme uncertainty in the path of exchange rates and the decline in external liquidity reserves.” And she pointed out that the…

Despite forecasts of a steeper drop, GDP saw a year-on-year decline of 2.2% in the first quarter of 2023 Russia’s economy posted a better than expected 2.2% GDP drop from January through March in annual terms, statistics from the Economy Ministry have shown. According to the ministry, the Russian economy shrank by 1.1% year-on-year in March, an improvement on a revised 2.9% decline in February. GDP is expected to rebound marginally in 2023 from a 2.1% annual decline last year due to Western sanctions. Ministry data seen by local media in April showed that the economy is forecast to grow…

Russia has a healthy level of state debt and inflation, according to the president Russia is in better economic shape than many large Western nations in terms of inflation and the level of sovereign debt, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. During a working meeting with Economy Minister Maksim Reshetnikov, Putin noted that Russia’s state debt is only a fraction of its gross domestic product. “It’s 121.7% [of GDP] in the US, the eurozone’s debt amounts to 90.9%, Germany’s and France’s total 66.5% and 111.1% respectively, Russia’s 14.9% is a well-performing indicator,” the leader stated. Putin also drew attention to the…

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced on Thursday the enactment of a law that eliminates taxes on innovative technologies, such as software creation, coding, and artificial intelligence (AI), among others. Bukele is eager to turn his country into Latin America’s tech leader. The law signed by the Salvadoran president will exempt technology companies from all taxes for at least 15 years, according to Binance. “I’ve just signed into law, the INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING INCENTIVES ACT, that eliminates all taxes (income, property, capital gains and import tariffs) on technology innovations, software and app programming, AI, computer and communications hardware manufacturing,” Bukele…

More regional lenders have seen their shares plummet, prompting regulators to intervene Two more US regional banks saw their shares suspended on Thursday, amid the worst crisis to hit the country’s financial sector since 2008. Regulators temporarily suspended trading in shares of Los Angeles-based PacWest and Arizona’s Western Alliance after their prices fell dramatically. PacWest Bancorp said late Wednesday it was in talks with potential partners and investors about strategic options after its shares dropped by as much as 60%. “Recently, the company has been approached by several potential partners and investors – discussions are ongoing,” the bank announced. But investors were not…

Consumers are buying more domestic and Chinese brands amid the exodus of Western and Japanese automakers, statistics show Sales of new passenger cars in Russia jumped 2.7 times in April compared to the same period in 2022, data from analytical agency Avtostat showed on Thursday. According to the report, more than 75,000 new vehicles were sold last month in total, which is 8% more than in March. Avtostat said that 44% of the cars sold were Chinese brands, while another 35% were Russian made. The combined share of South Korean, Japanese, European, and American automobiles fell to just over 20%.…