China's U.S. Offer, Japan CPI Flop, Italian Debt Lesson: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Happy Friday, Asia. Here’s news from Bloomberg Economics to help get your day started:

• Going big. China has offered President Trump a $200 billion reduction in its annual trade surplus with the U.S. by increasing imports of American products. Economists see Trump following through with some of the tariffs he’s threatened to slap on China -- while U.S. firms don’t like the tariffs, they do want Trump to make China play fair
• The Bank of Japan’s key inflation gauge slowed for a second straight month, underscoring its struggles to hit the 2 percent target. Meanwhile, the government is looking to the private sector to help rein in health-care spending
• Stephanie Flanders suggests Italy’s new populist leadership could do with some lessons on debt
• Using some nice graphics, see how global trade’s ability to feed the world is concentrated on increasingly vulnerable trade routes
• Dan Moss argues the global upswing is looking increasingly out of sync
• Yoo Myung-hee, Korea’s first and only female deputy minister, runs the office charged with renegotiating the U.S. trade deal. On that note, the Philippine economy could expand by as much as $40 billion if it brought more women into the workforce
• Indonesia’s central bank pledged to take “stronger measures” to maintain stability after raising its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2014
• Ila Patnaik tackles India’s notoriously bad and contradictory employment data to establish whether jobs are actually being created. Michael R. Strain suggests U.S. firms offer better wages to secure employees

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