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Agriculture has suffered losses of over $25 billion since the war began, Ukrainian grain trader association UGA estimates. Ukraine's grain exports so far in the 2023/24 season that started in July are running 28% below the year-earlier volume, according to agriculture ministry data. A new Black Sea shipping channel may offer a lifeline, like for Ukraine's depleted steel industry. An additional 943,000 tons should leave from Black Sea ports and 464,000 tons from the Danube by the month-end. A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa on Nov. 21 added to a series of attacks on Ukraine's Black Sea and Danube grain ports.

Persons: Stringer, Jean, Francois Lepy, Dmitry Skornyakov, Denys Marchuk, Skornyakov, Yuriy Stelmakh, Roman Gorobets, Soliman, Scott Wellcome, Pavel Polityuk, Gus Trompiz, Nigel Hunt, David Evans Organizations: REUTERS, Agriculture, UGA, Spike, Agrarian Council, FE ASTRA, Kremlin, Mediterranean, Thomson Locations: Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia region, PARIS, Russia, UN, Geneva, Black, Russian, Odesa, Romania's Constanta, Brazil, Egypt, GoodMills, Kyiv, Paris, London

☆ UK home-buyer demand inches up as mortgage rates fall: Zoopla
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-27 | by ( David Milliken | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsLONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - More Britons made enquiries with estate agents about potential house purchases over the past four weeks as mortgage rates started to fall, breaking a downward trend which has been in place since April, property website Zoopla said on Thursday. "Better news on inflation and the end of base rate increases has provided scope for lenders to start reducing mortgage rates which has supported a modest uptick in demand for homes," Zoopla's executive director, Richard Donnell, said. Weekly mortgage data collated by property website Rightmove showed the average interest rate for a mortgage with a two-year fixed rate fell from an average of 6.41% in August to 6.07% this week. This still represents a sharp increase from 4.60% a year ago, when mortgage rates had already begun to climb after bond markets baulked at the then-Prime Minister Liz Truss' budget plans as well as BoE tightening. Mortgage lender Halifax said house prices in August were 4.6% lower than a year earlier, the sharpest drop in 14 years.

Persons: Phil Noble, Zoopla, Richard Donnell, Rightmove, Liz Truss, BoE, David Milliken, William James Our Organizations: REUTERS, Royal Institution, Chartered Surveyors, Thomson Locations: Knutsford, Britain, Halifax

[1/2] A view shows packets of snacks on the shelves inside a Haldiram's restaurant in Mumbai, India, September 6, 2023. Tata Consumer shares surged and closed nearly 4% higher in Mumbai trade after Reuters reported news of the talks. The potential acquisition represents an exciting opportunity for Tata, the person said, adding: "Tata (Consumer) is seen as a tea company. A spokesperson for Tata Consumer Products said it "does not comment on market speculation". The $10 billion valuation sought by Haldiram's for the deal translates to 6.6 times its annual revenue of $1.5 billion, sources said.

Persons: Sriram, Tata, Mukesh Ambani's, Tetley, Haldiram's, Krishan Kumar Chutani, Bain, Ankur Bisen, Manohar Lal Agrawal, Aditya Kalra, Chris Thomas, Edwina Gibbs, Alexandra Hudson Organizations: REUTERS, India Tata, Tata, Pepsi, Bain Capital, Tata Consumer Products, Starbucks, Tata Consumer, Reuters, Haldiram's, Euromonitor International, Tata Group, CNBC TV18, Bikaji Foods, Alexandra Hudson Our, Thomson Locations: Mumbai, India, MUMBAI, DELHI, Singapore, United States, Bikaji

☆ Some at Bank of Japan baulked at ex-chief Kuroda's 'bazooka' stimulus, 2013 meeting minutes show
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-31 | by ( Leika Kihara | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda speaks during a news conference after attending the Monetary Policy Meeting at BOJ headquarters in Tokyo, Japan January 18, 2023, in this photo released by Kyodo. TOKYO, July 31 (Reuters) - Some Bank of Japan (BOJ) policymakers baulked at former chief Haruhiko Kuroda's idea of deploying a "bazooka" massive stimulus a decade ago, unconvinced central banks had the power to jolt public perceptions, accounts of the meeting released on Monday showed. Former banker Koji Ishida said he would propose reviewing the stimulus programme if no tangible results were seen one year into its launch, the minutes showed. Since then, the BOJ has capped long-term borrowing costs at about zero and has pledged to maintain ultra-low interest rates until its 2% inflation target is sustainably met and accompanied by wage growth. After serving two, five-year terms, Kuroda stepped down from the top BOJ post in March.

Persons: Haruhiko Kuroda, baulked, Haruhiko, Shinzo Abe, Kuroda, Masaaki Shirakawa, Hiroshi Nakaso, Takahide Kiuchi, Takehiro Sato, Sato, Koji Ishida, Leika Kihara, Jamie Freed Organizations: Bank of Japan, Kyodo ., Thomson Locations: Tokyo, Japan, Kyodo . TOKYO

"From our point of view, Rostock with its overseas port and an existing ammonia terminal can become a hub for international hydrogen imports into eastern Germany," said Hans-Joachim Polk, board member for infrastructure and technology. In another cooperation, VNG is sounding out Algeria's state oil and gas producer Sonatrach with a view to possibly arranging green hydrogen imports into Rostock via Tunisian and Italian natural gas pipelines, Polk told a press briefing. As customers across Europe baulked at sky-high prices, VNG's gas sales fell 23% last year to 588 billion kilowatt hours (kWh). As well as gas sales to local utilities and industry, the group has a wide range of activities in high pressure and distribution gas pipelines, storage facilities and biogas. Reporting by Vera Eckert; Editing by Rachel More, Friederike Heine and Susan FentonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

LONDON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - March 2022 will go down in the history books as the moment the global nickel market broke down. The search is on for a new nickel price discovery process. Global Commodities Holdings (GCH) thinks it has a solution, a blast from the LME's own distant past that could have far-reaching consequences for industrial metals trading. This is self-evidently true of the LME nickel contract, which simply could not absorb the scale of short positions accumulated by China's Tsingshan Group. It may not just be nickel players keeping a close eye on GCH's proposed new metals pricing solution.

Just three months after he all but admitted his ambitions to get the top job in politics had ended, Hunt was appointed finance minister, propelled into the job to clean up the market mess created by his boss, Prime Minister Liz Truss. "No one camp of the other candidates who went further can feel too sore and bad about not having their man or woman as prime minister," he told BBC radio. In a room on the so-called Committee corridor in parliament, Hunt told colleagues that tough decisions would have to be made to balance the books. Another joked: "It was good to hear from the new prime minister." Some are still not convinced his latest appointment will bring him the prize he has pursued for so long - to become prime minister.

Two days later, a chastened Truss addressed her first news conference as prime minister to admit she had gone "further and faster" than markets expected and sacked her friend and finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng to try to appease her lawmakers. With her credibility in tatters, she is now fighting for her political survival. "But it is clear that parts of our mini budget went further and faster than markets were expecting. Truss has also lost an important ally and, according to one person close to her, an important source of support in Kwarteng. But a veteran Conservative insider said it was simply a case of survival.

☆ IMF urges UK to align fiscal policy with BoE inflation goals
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( David Milliken | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"Fiscal policy should be aligned with monetary policy," Gourinchas said at a news conference in Washington, when asked about Britain's economic situation and the turmoil in its government bond market. "Central banks are trying to tighten monetary policy, and if you have at the same time fiscal authorities that try to stimulate aggregate demand, it's like having a car with two people in the front ... each trying to steer the car in a different direction. "Now what we've seen in the UK market, we've seen market dysfunction, related to some illiquidity in some segments," Gourinchas said. The IMF published new growth forecasts for Britain on Tuesday, although these were finalised before Kwarteng's Sept. 23 statement. The Fund expects British economic growth to slow to 0.3% next year compared with a July forecast of 0.5% growth for 2023.

☆ Bank of England to buy 65 billion pounds of UK bonds to stem rout
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( David Milliken | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Citing potential risks to UK financial stability, the BoE also said it would delay the start of a programme to sell down its 838 billion pounds ($891 billion) of government bond holdings, which had been due to begin next week. "Were dysfunction in this market to continue or worsen, there would be a material risk to UK financial stability," the BoE said. "This would lead to an unwarranted tightening of financing conditions and a reduction of the flow of credit to the real economy." "There are schemes running out of cash at the moment," one pensions consultant said before the BoE intervention. The BoE's intervention reduced long-dated bond yields back to their level at the end of Friday - after the initial negative reaction to Kwarteng's statement - but shorter-dated yields were still higher.

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