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

To contact the reporter on this story: Anirban Nag in Mumbai at anag8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net, Chris Bourke

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