ECB Rate-Bet Angst, Italy Interview, Xi's Grand Plan: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Thursday Europe. Here’s news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help get your day started:

• Tightening ahead. Some ECB policy makers are uneasy that investors aren’t betting on an interest-rate hike until the end of 2019
• Hand in hand. Italy’s new government will have both tax cuts and a universal basic income in its first budget, Finance Minister Giovanni Tria said in an interview
• Chinese President Xi Jinping has an ambitious master plan for his country’s transformation into a wealthy, technology-driven global economic power. U.S. firms need not apply
• Japan needs more fiscal stimulus before a planned sales tax hike, says an economic adviser to the government
• Diverging paths. Southeast Asia’s central bankers are taking different policy stances even as their economies get slammed by the same headwinds
• Bullet dodged. India’s move to raise support prices for buying farm produce won’t be as inflationary as thought, but that won’t be enough to keep the central bank from tightening

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