China is paralysing global debt-forgiveness efforts
Restructurings have all but disappeared
Given that his country is on the brink, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s economy minister, is strangely serene. In the week to January 20th, his government burned through a quarter of its dollar reserves, leaving $3.5bn to cover loan repayments and imports that will probably come to more than twice that in the first quarter of the year. Two days later ministers turned off the electricity grid to preserve fuel. Policymakers then abandoned a currency peg. The rupee plummeted, but Mr Ishaq Dar remained cool. Pakistan’s prosperity, he said, is in God’s hands.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “No relief in sight”
Finance & economics February 4th 2023
- How Russia dodges oil sanctions on an industrial scale
- Is there a fix for Japan’s markets mess?
- The last gasp of the meme-stock era
- China is paralysing global debt-forgiveness efforts
- Rallying markets suffer from a doveish illusion
- Super-tight policy is still struggling to control inflation
- The AI boom: lessons from history
From the February 4th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
Germany’s economy goes from bad to worse
Things may look brighter next year, but the relief will be short-lived
An economics Nobel for work on why nations succeed and fail
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson tackled the most important question of all
Why investors should still avoid Chinese stocks
The debate about “uninvestibility” obscures something important
China’s property crisis claims more victims: companies
Unsold homes are contributing to a balance-sheet recession
Europe’s green trade restrictions are infuriating poor countries
Only the poorest can expect help to cushion the blow
How America learned to love tariffs
Protectionism hasn’t been this respectable for decades