President Joe Biden said a corporate tax rate between 25% and 28% could help pay for badly needed infrastructure, suggesting he could accept a lower rate than what he has proposed in his search for Republican support for the funding. In his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, the Democratic president initially proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Tax experts and congressional aides told Reuters in April that a 25% rate would be a likely compromise. The U.S. corporate tax rate dropped to 21% from 35% after the 2017 tax cut pushed by then-President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans, but many big U.S. companies pay much less. Increasing what companies pay into the more than $4 trillion federal budget is an important part of Biden’s plan to restructure the U.S. economy to reduce inequality and to try to counter China’s rise.
China says it will communicate with EU to ensure investment deal comes into force
China will stay in communication and coordination with the European Union to ensure a bilateral investment deal comes into
effect, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday. The European Commission said on Wednesday it had dialled down
efforts to promote the planned investment agreement, recognising that EU lawmakers will not approve any such deal while
Beijing maintains sanctions on five of their colleagues.
Bank of England sees faster economic rebound, slows its bond buying
The Bank of England said Britain's economy would grow by the most since World War Two this year and slowed the pace of
its trillion dollar bond-purchasing programme, but stressed it was not reversing its stimulus. Governor Andrew Bailey
welcomed the prospect of a stronger recovery than previously forecast as the country races ahead with its coronavirus
vaccinations, with much lower unemployment. But he also said there was still a big gap compared with how big the economy
would have been without the pandemic. The BoE raised its forecast for British economic growth in 2021 to 7.25% from
February's estimate of 5.0%. The economy was set to return to its pre-pandemic size in the last quarter of 2021, three months
earlier than previously thought, the BoE said. But it lowered its projection for growth in 2022 to 5.75% from its previous
estimate of 7.25%.
Dollar on backfoot ahead of U.S. jobs data
The 10-year government bond yield (interpolated) on the previous trading day was 1.75, -2.00 bps. The benchmark
government bond yield (LB31DA, 10.5 years) was 1.79, -2.00 bps. LB29DA could be between 1.77-1.81. Meantime, the latest
closed US 10-year bond yields was 1.58%, -1.00bps. USDTHB on the previous trading day closed around 31.21 Moving in a
range from 31.18-31.24 this morning. USDTHB could be closed between 31.16-31.23 today. Meantime, The dollar stayed
under modest pressure on Friday ahead of a key U.S. jobs report that could cement expectations of a strong economic
recovery and fan investor appetite for stocks, higher-yielding currencies and commodities.
Sources : Bloomberg, CNBC, Investing, CEIC
