Issued building permits in Saudi Arabia surged 28.2% annually in April, following a 0.7% drop in the previous month, according to preliminary data from the General Authority for Statistics released Sunday.
On a monthly basis, the short-term business indicators statistics showed a 42.5% jump in issued building permits.
The UK's Office for National Statistics expects the quality of its future Labour Force Survey data to be temporarily affected by an operational issue in May and early June, beginning from its next labor market release in July.The statistical office said Friday an operational systems error resulted in an over-allocation of telephone interviewers' time to another survey, which impacted the response levels for the labor force survey between May 3 and June 10. Some residual effects were also found to have continued until June 17.The ONS noted that the issue is now resolved and that it has taken steps to prevent it from happening again.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released the minutes of its latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting Friday, revealing consensus among members regarding the future path of interest rates and the central bank's policy stance.At the meeting held from June 3 to June 5, the MPC voted 6-0 to maintain the policy repo rate at 5.25% and also voted to keep the stance neutral.According to the minutes, Governor Sanjay Malhotra emphasized that India's economic situation is healthy compared with many peers, with a fast growing economy and benign inflation.Many MPC members shared concerns over the impact of the prolonged West Asia conflict on the global economy, with Nagesh Kumar, in particular, stating that the conflict is an important shock for India's economic outlook in the near term.
The Canadian dollar on Thursday fell to 70.7 US cents, or above $1.413/US dollar, its lowest ebb in more than a year, said Bank of Montreal (BMO) late Thursday.The US dollar has broadly strengthened against major currencies in recent days as market expectations for the Federal Reserve policy have shifted in a more hawkish direction following Chair Kevin Warsh's first Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, BMO added. At the same time, the greenback has benefited from robust capital inflows linked to the technology sector's continued expansion.On the other hand, the Canadian dollar remains particularly "on the defensive," BMO Chief Economist Douglas Porter wrote. On a broader view, the loonie continues to struggle, recently hovering near its weakest level against the euro since 2009.BMO added that a key factor weighing on the Canadian dollar is the uncertainty surrounding the future of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), or CUSMA as the trade agreement is known in Canada.Meanwhile, lower oil prices have provided an additional, although mild, headwind for the Canadian dollar, according to Porter. However, the loonie's response to energy markets has been notably muted as, despite the strong rally in crude prices earlier this year as a result of the Middle East conflict, the Canadian currency got little support from those upswings.