UK's Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is set to announce the government's lockdown easing plans today, according to his office. Despite the UK recently deciding to allow certain non-essential businesses to reopen, there are still businesses, especially from the leisure sector, that have not been able to reopen their doors to the public.
The Prime Minister's office announced that Johnson is telling the parliament on Tuesday which sectors will be allowed to reopen next month, on July 4th. It's also rumored that he's announcing the change of the social distance guidelines, which at the moment request people stay two meters apart.
The Bank of England's governor, Andrew Bailey said that he would prefer to shrink the bank's balance sheet before raising the interest rates, adding that the current scale of the bank's reserve doesn't have to become a permanent feature.
“Current scale of central bank reserves mustn’t become a permanent feature,” he said, “As economies recover, it’s likely that some of the exceptional monetary stimuli will need to be withdrawn, including by reducing reserves,” he added.
Meanwhile, Italy's Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte announced yesterday that the country's budget deficit will probably reach 10.4 percent of the Gross Domestic Product this year and that it's probably to expand further given the necessity to aid economic growth.
“A further increase in the budget deficit is likely,” he said, adding that the government is concerned about weak consumer spending and is interested in reducing the gap between the workers' gross and net salaries.
“We will probably need to intervene for a further widening of the budget gap because the resources are not enough to cope with the impact of a horrible year both economically and socially,” he continued.
One of Conte's proposals is cutting the value-added tax, which may be opposed by the more moderate members of his political coalition.
Italy's economy is set to shrink between 9.2 percent and 13.1 percent this year according to data released by the Bank of Italy. To face the effects of the virus on the economy the government has implemented a couple of stimulus packages worth 75 billion euros and maybe asking the approval of an additional 10 billion euros package.
On Friday, the European stock markets rallied, despite the fears for a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak. The FTSE 100 advanced 1.10 percent, closing in the 6,292.60 level. The DAX gained 0.40 percent, closing at 12,330.76 while the Euro Stoxx 50 increased 0.59 percent, closing at 3,269.10.