Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial newsChina exports beat expectations despite slump in trade with USOver in Iceland, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has insisted that the BoE is fully committed to its inflation target.Speaking to the Reykjavík Economic Conference, Bailey insists:Our commitment to the 2% inflation target is unwavering.A sequence of unprecedented global shocks has created a very challenging environment for monetary policy. The largest pandemic in a century, the largest war in Europe since 1945, and now a trade war between the world’s two largest economies – these are not small and simple disturbances to aggregate demand, and they come against a backdrop of low productivity growth and ageing populations.While it remains to be seen how recent changes to global trade policies will play out and what the effects on our economies will be, the effects of the pandemic and Russia’s brutal war on the Ukrainian people are fresh in our minds.A sum of the parts valuation suggests BP’s assets are worth in excess of £120bn, without including debt and liabilities, more than twice its current market capitalisation of £57bn, which follows a sharp slump in its shares over the past 12 months.“The continued underperformance of BP makes it open to a takeover,” said a person close to the activist investor Elliott Management, which has built a leading stake in the company. Continue reading...