
European Union finance ministers have agreed on a massive emergency package designed to ensure that member-states hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic will have the necessary resources to rebuild their economies.

While Mexico and Saudi Arabia fought over a deal to bring the oil-price war to an end, Mexico has a powerful defense: a massive Wall Street hedge shielding it from low prices. The Mexican sovereign oil hedge, which ensures the country against low prices and is considered a state secret, is a factor that may make the country less inclined to accept the OPEC+ agreement.

Americans spent Sunday on lockdown as the US toll from the COVID-19 pandemic surpassed 20,000 deaths and more than half a million confirmed cases. With almost all the country under stay-at-home orders to curb the spread of the disease, many turned to online church services to mark the holiest day in the Christian calendar.

World food prices declined sharply in March, driven mostly by demand-side contractions linked to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the drop in global oil prices due mostly to expectations of economic slowdown as governments roll out restrictions designed to respond to the health crisis.

The European Union's competition chief told the Financial Times that member countries should buy stakes in companies to counter the threat of Chinese takeovers, with her comments coming as the EU formulates plans to protect its businesses amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Argentina’s state-held energy firm YPF slashed by 50% the oil production from its key development area in the vast Vaca Muerta shale play this week due to tumbling fuel demand in Argentina’s lockdown, local news outlet Rio Negro reports.

More than 60 U.N. agencies and international organizations urged governments on Thursday to take immediate steps to address the unfolding global recession and financial crisis wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, especially in the world’s poorest countries.

The International Monetary Fund sees the world economy suffering its worst recession since the Great Depression this year, with emerging markets and low-income nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia at particularly high risk.

Brazilian inflation slowed sharply in March, official figures showed on Thursday, falling to its lowest for that month in over quarter of a century as the new coronavirus crisis sapped demand for household goods and transport.

General Motors Co plans to keep its Brazilian factories shut down for at least 60 more days due to the coronavirus crisis, the company said on Thursday, as the final batch of unionized workers voted on the automaker's proposal.