Europe Vaccination Lag, Global Services Slump, IMF Take: Eco Day

Welcome to Wednesday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

• Widespread lockdowns and slower vaccine rollout in Europe have put the continentbehind global peers in global growth forecasts
• European Central Bank policy makers have agreed to look deeper into theeuro’s appreciation against the dollar since the start of the pandemic, focusing on whether it’s driven by differences in stimulus policies
• Global services exports weredecimated by Covid-related lockdowns, the World Trade Organization finds
• The International Monetary Fundboosted its global growth outlook owing to vaccine optimism. Here’s when big economies will reach theirpre-virus GDP levels, according to the IMF forecasts
• The U.K.could aid 1.5 million crisis-hit workers who have no income support at a modest cost, a study found
• Freight companies are rejecting one in five contracts to take goods from France to the U.K. as border rules put in place after Brexit add todelays in moving goods across the English Channel
• Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is expected to maintain the central bank’saggressive support of the U.S. economy, despite having spied “light at the end of the tunnel” from the Covid-19 pandemic
• U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’ll start moving soon on aDemocrat-only Covid-19 relief plan if Republicans continue to reject President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal. Meanwhile, House and Senate Democrats unveiled a bill to increase the U.S.federal minimum wage to $15 an hour
• China’s financial risksremain manageable even as markets await a subtle central bank turn toward tapering stimulus and normalizing policy, according to a Bloomberg Economics analysis
• Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his top economic chiefswarned against more fiscal stimulus this year

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