Big Covid Changes, China Revision, India Spending Boost: Eco Day

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

• Economic shocks like the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 only arrive once every few generations, and they bring about permanent and far-reaching change. Here is an overview of some of the transformations under way
• In the pandemic-hit America of 2020, people once in the middle classes are struggling to secure food, shelter and a decent income. Others are enjoying rising home prices, new models of work and the pleasures of baking bread.
• European Union and Chinese leaders are poised to announce a hard-fought agreement to expand opportunities in China for foreign investors
• China’s central bank reiterated its pledge to avoid a sudden shift in monetary policy while it maintains necessary support for the economy’s recovery. The country also revised down its official 2019 GDP growth rate to 6% from 6.1% as the output was 435 billion yuan ($67 billion) smaller than the initial estimate, roughly equal to the GDP of Ghana last year
• People around the world want governments to spend more to help economies survive the coronavirus as they ponder a bleak outlook for their own finances in the coming year, according to a global survey carried out by YouGov
• India is set to swing from being a cautious spender in 2020 to opening the fiscal floodgates as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to pull the economy back from the worst of the pandemic
• The Internal Revenue Service began sending $600 stimulus payments to eligible Americans’ bank accounts on Tuesday evening and will continue processing the transfers into next week
• North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will likely seek fresh impetus for driving growth at a ruling party congress in January after the pandemic added to the pain of sanctions that leave him with a smaller economy than the one he took over nine years ago.

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