U.S. Rescue Plan, QE Down Under, ECB Emergency Call: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Thursday, Asia. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

• The U.S. Senate cleared the second major bill responding to the coronavirus that’s estimated at $1.3 trillion. The Philadelphia Fed chief said there’s debate on whether to expand market interventions
• The RBA is poised to deploy its remaining interest-rate ammunition and delve into unconventional measures to support the battered economy. New Zealand’s central bank may need to make the historic leap to quantitative easing sooner than it expected as financial markets show signs of increasing stress
• ECB policy makers are holding an emergency call to discuss their response to the pandemic. Euro-area officials are looking at activating the region’s bailout fund
• China is accelerating spending on infrastructure and has lowered taxes to fight the coronavirus induced slump but comes nowhere close to the 4 trillion yuan ($570 billion) bazooka-style stimulus it unleashed during the financial crisis
• Governments are finally getting the message that they’ll have to run exponentially bigger budget deficits to keep economies afloat as the coronavirus brings the world to a sudden halt
• As efforts to contain the coronavirus intensify, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is poised for a historic surge. Globally, 25 million job losses could be recorded
• U.K. schools will close after Prime Minister Boris Johnson tightened restrictions on the population in the battle against coronavirus
• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced plans to roll out a fiscal package worth 3% of Canada’s economy as it grapples with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic
• Ghana became the first sub-Saharan Africa country to cut interest rates in response to the coronavirus pandemic, reducing its benchmark to an eight-year low
• Bloomberg’s Stephanie Flanders shares her five lessons for policy makers beginning to grasp the scale of the fiscal support that this crisis is going to require

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