1) IMF warns Asia economies to face stagflation
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Tuesday that the Asia region is facing a stagflationary outlook, citing the war between Russia and Ukraine, a spike in commodity costs and a slowdown in China as creating significant uncertainty.
IMF stated that while Asia’s trade and financial exposures to Russia and Ukraine are limited, economies in Asian countries will be affected by higher commodity prices and slower growth in European trading partners along with a slowdown in China due to a rise in Covid-19 cases in major cities.
2) S.Korea Q1 growth slowdown to 0.7%
South Korea’s adjusted gross domestic product grew 0.7% in the first quarter of 2022, according to the report from the Bank of Korea, while also slowing down from 1.2% in the previous quarter. The slowdown in economic growth was due to its Covid-19 curbs and surging inflation. Moreover, a slowdown in the Chinese economy could cloud the outlook of South Korea’s economy for the coming months as well.
Still, the growth beat the 0.6% growth forecast by a Reuters survey.
3) Elon Musk clinches the deal to buy Twitter
Tesla CEO Elon Musk settled the deal to buy Twitter Inc (Nasdaq: TWTR) for $44 billion in cash on Monday in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform and turn into a private company, saying that Twitter’s algorithm for prioritizing tweets should be public, while critisizing the company for giving too much power on the service to corporations that advertise.
