China will suspend its 24% additional tariff on U.S. goods for one year but retain a 10% levy, the State Council's tariff commission said on Wednesday, following last week's meeting between President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump. 

The commission also announced China, the world's top agricultural buyer, will lift some tariffs of up to 15% on U.S. agricultural goods from November 10. (RTRS – Continue Reading) 

Canada said Tuesday it intends to run wider deficits to finance spending and tax measures aimed at unleashing the hundreds of billions in private-sector investment the economy needs to rebuild amid a protectionist U.S.

To offset some of the elevated costs, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government said it would cut the size of the federal public-sector workforce by about 5%, or 16,000 jobs. (WSJ – Continue Reading) 

New Zealand’s jobless rate rose to the highest in nine years in the third quarter as the weak economy made firms reluctant to take on new workers.

Unemployment climbed to 5.3% from 5.2% in the second quarter, Statistics New Zealand said Wednesday in Wellington. That matched economists’ median estimate and was the highest since the fourth quarter of 2016. Employment was unchanged from the previous three months, weaker than the estimated 0.1% increase. (BBG – Continue Reading) 

A growing number of policymakers at the Bank of Japan believed that conditions were falling into place for interest rates to rise, with two members advocating an immediate increase, minutes of the central bank's September meeting showed on Wednesday.

At the two-day meeting through September 19, the nine-member board kept interest rates steady at 0.5%, turning down proposals made by two hawkish members to raise borrowing costs to 0.75%. 

In a sign the focus of debate was shifting towards the exact timing of the next rate hike, several members said it would not be too late to await "a little more hard data," the minutes showed. (RTRS – Continue Reading)