Ukraine’s economic output will likely contract by a staggering 45.1 per cent this year as Russia’s invasion has shuttered businesses, slashed exports and rendered economic activity impossible in large swaths of the country, the World Bank said on Sunday.

The United States on Friday broadened its export curbs against Russia and Belarus, restricting access to imports of items such as fertilizer and pipe valves as it seeks to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and Minsk following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The dominant US services sector saw growth accelerate in March as worker shortages and Covid-19 cases eased, but firms continue to face supply challenges, according to an industry survey released Tuesday.

SVAM, a US-based global information technology services provider, wants to set up a software delivery centre in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has an attractive economic sector for investment, US Ambassador Peter Haas said yesterday.

The US labour market has almost recovered from the mass joblessness caused by the pandemic, adding hundreds of thousands of positions last month and sending the unemployment rate nearly to where it was before Covid-19 broke out nationwide.

Citing the need to counteract the  “Putin price hike” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden has announced a sweeping plan to make unprecedented use of US emergency oil stockpiles.

Orders for big-ticket manufactured goods fell for the first time in five months in February amid a slump in business for civilian aircraft manufacturers, US government data said Thursday.

The US Trade Representative’s office said on Wednesday it has reinstated 352 expired product exclusions from US “Section 301” tariffs on Chinese imports, well short of the 549 exclusions that it was previously considering.

The consequences for the global financial system if Russia cannot pay its foreign debts are likely to be “limited,” a senior official at the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

Cotton prices rose to their highest level in more than a decade on Monday, due to a prolonged drought in parts of the central United States.

US and British officials will begin two days of meetings in Baltimore on Monday to discuss strengthening trade ties, as the United States and its allies ratchet up pressure on Russia over its war in Ukraine and China for failing to condemn it.

Massive price spikes for food and energy sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will push over 40 million people into extreme poverty, the Center for Global Development (CGDEV) said on Friday, warning against export curbs and sanctions on Russian food production.

The Federal Reserve escalated its battle against the wave of price increases battering the US economy, raising the benchmark interest rate on Wednesday even as it acknowledged the risks posed by the war in Ukraine.

Rising costs for gasoline caused US retail sales to grow in February, according to government data released Wednesday, though the expansion was slightly below expectations.

Major US carriers lifted their revenue forecasts Tuesday as a faster-than-expected travel recovery from the latest Covid-19 wave mitigates the drag from higher jet fuel costs.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday will close the door on its ultra-easy pandemic-era monetary policy and step up the fight against stubbornly high inflation with the first in what is likely to be a series of interest rate hikes this year.

Wild swings in asset prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are prompting some investors to pare risk in their portfolios, fearing that the type of volatility seen in commodities in recent weeks could hit other markets.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who is due to meet with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday, warned Beijing that it would “absolutely” face consequences if it helped Moscow evade sweeping sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Surging prices for fuel, food and housing have sent US inflation to the highest in four decades, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made the situation worse, so the Federal Reserve is preparing to take action this week.