Closing post
Time to wrap up….
The International Monetary Fund has urged Britain to “stay the course” to cut government borrowing amid growing bond market concerns over a Labour leadership challenge.
As Keir Starmer battles to cling on to power, the Washington-based fund said it was important to continue reducing the budget deficit “given market pressures and elevated implementation risks”.
In its annual health check on the UK economy, the IMF praised the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, for striking “a good balance between deficit reduction and growth-friendly spending” as it upgraded its growth forecasts for 2026.
After sounding the alarm last month that Britain would suffer the heaviest economic blow from the Iran war, it increased its forecasts for growth of 0.8% to 1% to reflect the UK’s “strong prewar momentum” and a robust performance in the first quarter of the year.
Reeves said the upgrade showed the government had the “right economic plan” after official figures released last week showed the economy grew at a stronger rate than first anticipated at the start of the year.
In a thinly veiled rebuke to Labour MPs considering toppling Starmer, she said: “Putting our stability at risk when signs of progress are emerging would leave families and businesses worse off.”
In other news….
A sell-off in government bonds has reversed, thanks to a drop in the oil price.
Japanese 30-year borrowing costs hit record highs earlier today, amid reports Tokyo was drawing up a new energy support package.
But UK government bonds have staged a small recovery, pushing down the yields (or interest rates) on British debt.
British drivers have been warned to expect a jump in petrol prices later this week.
FTSE 100 closes 1.26% higher
After a choppy start to the day, the London stock market has closed higher this afternoon.
The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares has closed 128 points higher at 10,323.75 points, a gain of 1.26% today.
Utilities led the risers, with Centrica up 4% and National Grid 3.66% higher.
One factor behind the UK’s weak growth in recent years is that business investment has been modest, lagging behind the US.
The Financial Times reported yesterday:
Preliminary figures published alongside GDP data on Thursday showed that UK business investment was up 11 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with Q4 2019, before the pandemic, according to official data.
This is less than half the pace of the 28 per cent rise in US non-residential private domestic investment over the same period, with AI being a driver of capital spending.
Bond meltdown eases as oil drops
The early selloff in government bonds has now eased, thanks to a drop in the oil price.
The yields (interest rates) on UK long-dated bonds have dropped further from Friday’s multi-year highs, while US borrowing costs are also slightly lower.
UK 30-year bond yields are now down almost nine basis points at 5.76%, away from the 28-year high of 5.85% set last Friday.
That follows a drop in the oil price, following a report that the US has proposed a temporary waiver of sanctions on Iran’s oil to agree to a peace deal and reopen the strait of Hormuz.
IMF: Pensions triple lock may need to go
Britain may need to ditch the pensions triple lock, or bring in more NHS charges, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
In the Concluding Statement of the 2026 Article IV Mission to the UK, the IMF warns that ‘difficult choices’ will be needed to cope with rising pressures from ageing, defense, and the climate transition.
The long-term scope for further tax rises is ‘becoming limited’, the IMF suggests, meaning spending reforms will be needed.
It says:
Deeper expenditure reforms could, for example, entail replacing the triple lock with a policy of indexing the state pension to the cost of living, improving the targeting of social benefits, as well as focusing more on preventative care, and expanding charges in the health system while protecting the vulnerable.
[The triple lock means pensions rise each year in line with wages, inflation, or by 2.5%, whichever is higher].
Hacks beat Flaks
It’s the business end of the football season, and few games are as closely fought as the annual Hacks v Flaks charity game.
We’re pleased to report that the cream of UK financial journalism beat their counterparts in the communications industry in what’s been described as a physical battle at Plough Lane, home of AFC Wimbledon, on Friday night.
The game finished 3-1 to the Hacks, including Richard Partington of this parish.
The Hack’s goal-scoring stars were the Financial Times’ Ramsay Hodgson with two, and freelancer Lee Stobbs with a late “breakaway goal at the death”, while FTI Consulting’s Mathias Davies got the Flaks onto the scoresheet.
[FTI also claim they were denied a “stonewall” penalty, but VAR hasn’t yet reached these heights, so we’ll have to file that under ‘according to sources’…].
More importantly, the match also raised over £7,500 which AFC Wimbledon Foundation will use to run activities for young people (often those on free school meals), and the elderly in South-West London.
Updated
London tube strikes called off at last minute
Planned strikes by drivers on the London Underground this week have been called off.
The RMT union has announced that the two 24-hour stoppages from midday on Tuesday, which were set to disrupt travel over four days this week, had been suspended.
Andy Burnham is giving a speech now, in which he explains that “40 years of neoliberalism that have not been kind to the north of England” – starting with the deindustrialisation of the 1980s, followed by privatisations in the 90s and austerity in the 2010s.
My colleague Andrew Sparrow’s Politics Live blog has all the details:
The IMF’s UK growth upgrade is welcome, but won’t make a meaningful difference, argues George Lagarias, chief economist at Forvis Mazars:
“It’s a (very) welcome respite for the UK economy, presently beset by domestic uncertainty, rising borrowing costs, a global trade war and a seemingly interminable tumult in the Middle East.
The IMF upgraded GDP growth prospects for 2026, from 0.8% to 1%, citing economic resilience and better-than-expected growth earlier in the year. With that said, the upgrade is mostly a backward-looking one, and would probably contribute little to changing monetary policy or improving borrowing costs.
The Fund cites significant challenges to growth and inflation if the Hormuz Strait remains closed for much longer.”
Petrol pump price closing in on April’s three-and-a-half-year high
Motorist groups are warning that UK fuel prices will soon rise over the highs set early in the Iran war.
The AA confirm that petrol pump prices are closing in on April’s three-and-a-half-year high, which they predict could be hit within days as the bank holiday weekend approaches.
The RAC has predicted that later this week the average price of a litre of petrol will eclipse the peak on 15 April, which was the last day prices peaked since the war in Iran began.
According to the RAC, the average price of a litre of petrol has risen to 158.24 today, only slightly below the 158.31p recorded on 15 April.
Luke Bosdet, the AA’s spokesman on pump prices, says:
“The need for ditching or delaying the fuel duty increase, due from September onwards, has been made more critical by average UK petrol pump prices climbing to within 1p of the three-and-a-half-year high, set in April.”
Yesterday, the Sun on Sunday reported that Rachel Reeves is expected this week to announced that the 5p increase in fuel duty that was due to take effect in the autumn will not now go ahead.
Downing Street have declined to comment on ‘tax speculation’, but didn’t deny the story, our Politics Live blog reports.
UK moves towards looser bank ringfence
The Treasury has fired the starting gun on loosening ringfencing rules for UK banks, but it’s still a relatively long road ahead, with consultations due to launch this summer and formal changes to legislation due...“as soon as parliamentary time allows.”
While the changes are due to be pretty technical, the Treasury said in its review released on Monday that proposed reforms would see banks “use a limited portion of their balance sheets more flexibly”, IE sharing resources across their ringfenced bank and the rest of their operations, and give the Bank of England more flexibility to update and tailor the rules over time.
The £35bn ceiling, at which banks have to ringfence their retail operations, will for example, be reviewed every three years, with a view to uprating it in line with the evolution of banking practices and growth in the deposit base.”
HMT says that the proposed reforms will help by “potentially unlocking up to £80bn of additional financing for UK businesses”.
Ringfencing was introduced after the 2008 financial crisis, in order to protect consumer cash from a bank’s riskier business activities in the coming months. Most of the big banks have lobbied relentlessly for rules to be rowed back, though Barclays has been the one stronghold for maintaining current rules, having invested heavily in their implementation.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves first confirmed that the government would be looking at ringfencing reforms nearly a year ago in July 2025, as part of her Mansion House speech in which she declared that rules and red tape were a”boot on the neck” of business and risked “choking off” innovation.
Things had gone quiet since, but banks were heartened last week to hear in the Kings Speech that the so-called Enhancing Financial Services Bill - which was expected to include the ringfencing changes - was due to be put through parliament.
The launch date of the consultation is currently TBC…
Updated
Full story: IMF urges UK to ‘stay the course’ on borrowing
A ‘family picture’ of G7 finance ministers meeting in Paris has arrived:
The IMF is also recommending the Bank of England should leave interest rates on hold this year.
It says:
Monetary policy should remain restrictive to ensure that higher energy prices do not spill over to core inflation and wage growth. The rise in energy prices will lift headline inflation this year while also weighing on output, complicating policy calibration.
Staff assesses that holding the policy rate unchanged for the remainder of the year would maintain a sufficiently restrictive monetary stance to limit second-round effects and keep long-term inflation expectations anchored.
However, given the “exceptional uncertainty”, the BoE should retain the flexibility to either tighten or loosen monetary stance, and “be prepared to respond forcefully” if needed to cool inflationary pressures.
IMF: UK should 'stay the course' on deficit reduction
The International Monetary Fund is also urging the UK government to stick with its deficit reduction plans.
In the concluding statement following its Article IV healthcheck on the UK, the fund had warm words for the plans being executed by chancellor Rachel Reeves (and her fiscal rules), saying:
The authorities’ medium-term fiscal strategy continues to strike a good balance between deficit reduction and growth-friendly spending, and recent changes to the fiscal framework strengthen policy stability and credibility.
Staying the course on deficit reduction will be important given market pressures and elevated implementation risks.
This vote of confidence from the IMF comes as various groups within the Labour party draw up competing economic plans and ideas that might revive the party’s fortunes:
IMF raises UK growth forecast for 2026
Newsflash: The International Monetary Fund has raised its forecast for UK growth this year.
IMF economists now expect UK GDP to rise by 1.0% in 2026, up from the 0.8% it forecast in April, due to the economy’s “strong pre-war momentum” and a “robust” performance in the first quarter of this year when the economy grew by 0.6%.
That upgrade should cheer ministers, even though it’s still below the 1.3% growth which the IMF predicted in January before the Iran war began, and would be a slowdown compared with 2025 when the UK grew by 1.4%.
The improved forecast comes after the IMF concluded its annual assessment of the UK economy (known as an Article IV Mission).
The IMF says:
While the UK economy has remained resilient in recent years, the war in the Middle East is dampening near-term prospects.
Growth is projected to slow to 1.0 percent this year, then gradually recover as the shock dissipates. Higher energy prices are expected to push inflation up temporarily and delay the return to the central bank’s target by about one year.
Updated
Speaking of oil….Ryanair has said it is “confident” it will not face a jet fuel shortage this summer amid fears over widespread cancellations linked to the Iran war.
Neil Sorahan, the chief financial officer at the budget airline, said he was “increasingly confident that we will not see any supply shocks this summer”.
The airline said fares had fallen in recent weeks due to uncertainty around conflict in the Middle East, with prices expected to fall by a “mid-single digit percentage” in the three months ended in June.
IEA's Birol warns commercial oil inventories are falling rapidly
International Energy Agency executive Director Fatih Birol has issued a new warning that oil inventories are shrinking fast.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G7 finance ministers’ meeting in Paris, Birol flagged that the tally of commercial oil inventories is shrinking at an accelerated pace.
Bloomberg has the details:
“I think it is depleting very fast,” he told reporters at the sidelines of a meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers in Paris, echoing comments from last week. It will be “several weeks, but we should be aware of the fact that it is declining rapidly,” he said.
He also highlighted that the spike in fertilizer and diesel prices comes at the start of the travel and planting season.
Updated
UK 10-year yields ease back
After hitting their hitting their highest levels since 2008 this morning, UK 10-year borrowing costs have eased back too.
The yield, or interest rate, on 10-year gilts is down 2.5 basis points (0.025 of a percentage point) to 5.14%.
That follows the easing in the oil price, after Tehran said it had responded to a new US proposal aimed at ending the Iran war (see earlier post).
It also follows early losses in global bonds, with Japan’s long-term borrowing costs hitting record highs (see opening post).
Dominic Caddick, economist at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), argues that borrowing costs will stay high regardless of who leads the Labour party.
“Borrowing costs will stay high regardless of who takes over the Labour Party - the real drivers are Trump’s Iran policy, UK inflation exposure, and pension market shifts that no austerity candidate can fix. Ending Britain’s bond market crisis requires direct intervention on inflation and better coordination between the Treasury and the Bank of England so that borrowing costs come down.
“Meanwhile, government must urgently address Britain’s weak demand to boost the economy. Through an essential energy guarantee government can help address inflation and deficient demand at once. A clear, credible economic strategy will bring borrowing costs down, and can be funded through progressive tax levers.”
[‘Pension market shifts’ refers to the shrinking market for defined benefit pensions, which had been a major purchases of long-term gilts such as 30-year bonds in the past]
In another example of the bond market sell-off, foreign investors sold China’s onshore yuan bonds for the 12th consecutive month in April, Reuters reports, citing official data.
Foreign institutions held 3.12trn yuan (£340bn) in bonds traded on China’s interbank market as of the end of April, the central bank’s Shanghai head office said, down from 3.19trn yuan a month earlier.
European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde was asked by reporters if she was worried about the bond market sell-off when she arrived in Paris for the G7 meeting.
Lagarde replied:
“I always worry, that’s my job.”
Pound rises, after a bad week
After falling every day last week, the pound is recovering some ground this morning.
Sterling has risen by over half a cent to $1.338 against the US dollar so far this morning.
Last week the pound fell by over three cents, its biggest weekly loss since last 2024, amid fears of higher fiscal spending if Andy Burnham became PM.
This morning, traders are digesting Burnham’s support for the existing fiscal rules, and warnings that the Manchester mayor faces a perilous race to win the Makerfield seat.
Some more photos of arrivals at the G7 finance meeting in Paris have arrived:
Iran has revealed it has responded to a new US proposal aimed at ending the war in the Middle East.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told a press briefing:
“As we announced yesterday, our concerns were conveyed to the American side.”
Brent crude oil has slipped back to $110.40 a barrel, up 1% today, having hit $112/barrel early today.
UK 30-year yields fall back from 28-year high
Encouraging news! The UK’s long-term cost of borrowing has dropped this morning.
The yield (or interest rate) on Britain’s 30-year bonds has dropped to 5.808%, a drop of four basis points (0.04 of a percentage point) today.
That pulls 30-year yields down from the 28-year high of 5.85% set on Friday afternoon, when the City was fretting about a potential UK leadership race.
Andy Burnham’s attempt last weekend to reassure the markets by pledging “I support the fiscal rules” may be calming investors’ nerves, after UK bond yields pushed higher last week.
Those fiscal rules are designed to reassure the markets that the government is committed to bringing down the national debt in future years, which gives investors more confidence to lend London money.
Neil Wilson, Saxo UK investor strategist, says:
Andy Burnham says he will stick to the fiscal rules but this Labour leadership debate is turning the microscope on a much broader issue; whether the UK can find the leadership to deliver a credible plan to fix the nation’s finances. Tough medicine is required but no one seems willing to administer.
Updated
Germany’s top central banker, Joachim Nagel, has declared that central bankers can do “a lot more” to calm the financial markets, as he arrived in Paris for the meeting of G7 finance chiefs.
Bank of England interest rate-setter Megan Greene has warned that the inflationary impact of the Iran war may not be temporary.
Speaking at a Financial Times event this morning, Greene says:
“This is our third negative supply shock in five years. We do have to worry about wage and price setting.
“Traditionally you look through negative supply shocks, but I think when you have successive ones, actually that’s outdated folklore and we shouldn’t be looking through them anymore.”
Greene was among the eight policymakers who voted to leave UK interest rates on hold at the Bank’s latest monetary policy meeting at the end of April, when chief economist Huw Pill cast the lone vote for a rate rise.
Updated
Shares in hotel group Whitbread have jumped 2.4% this morning as an activist hedge fund urges the company to put itself up for sale.
In a letter to Whitbread’s board seen by the FT, Corvex Management’s managing partner Keith Meister said:
“It is imperative that the board immediately retains an independent investment bank and makes a public commitment to conduct a rigorous and comprehensive sale process.”
Last month, Whitbread announced it would shut its remaining Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants as the Premier Inns owner resets its five-year business strategy following pressure from Corvex.
UK 10-year bond yields hit new 18-year high
Boom! Britain’s cost of borrowing for a decade has hit its highest since the financial crisis in 2008.
Despite Andy Burnham’s attempts to reassure bond investors by saying he supports the fiscal rules, UK government bonds are still being buffeted by the global turmoil in the markets today.
This pushed the yield (or interest rate) on 10-year gilt yields up to 5.19%, over the 18-year high hit last Friday.
Mohit Kumar, economist at investment bank Jefferies, says inflation and deficit worries are weighing on the bond market, and the political crisis in the UK may have focused attention on these problems:
Inflation and deficit concerns have been in the background for a while. UK was probably the catalyst for bringing these concerns to the fore.
Political uncertainty and the challenge to PM Starmer has raised concerns of a policy shift towards the left. UK fiscal picture has already been in a poor shape as the Government was unable to delivery on spending cuts.
A shift to the left would imply a further increase in public spending, even though the government does not have the fiscal room to do so. Tax rises have already reached a stage where further rises in taxes are likely to be prove unproductive and unlikely to generate additional revenue.
Photos: Reeves and Bailey in Paris for G7
The head of the International Monetary Fund has said that a sell-off in global bond markets was reflecting the impact of higher oil prices.
IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva was speaking as she arrived for a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Paris, Reuters reports.
FTSE 100 hits lowest since 31 March
Britain’s stock market has hit a six-week low at the start of trading in London.
The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares dropped to 10,151 points , a fall of 44 points of 0.4%.
UK housebuilders are among the big fallers, on concerns that higher interest rates will hit demand for homes and mortgages. BP (+2.2%) and Shell (+1.7%) are leading the risers as the oil price rises.
European stock markets are also weaker, with Germany’s DAX dropping almost 0.5% at the start of trading in Frankfurt.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at investing and trading platform IG, says:
“A combination of political turmoil and renewed gains for oil has been kryptonite for hopes of a new FTSE 100 rally.
Of course, the selling has not been confined to the UK, and continental indices are registering heavier losses as oil lurches higher once again. The market rally is rapidly coming to grips with the reality of the situation in the Middle East and in the global oil market, and it is not going to be pretty.”
Japan’s bond prices have been hit by the prospect of a debt-fuelled energy support package.
Today, prime minister Sanae Takaichi said she had told finance minister Satsuki Katayama last week to start work on compiling a supplementary budget, which could cushion the impact of the Middle East conflict on Japan’s economy.
According to Reuters, the extra budget will focus on funding government subsidies to curb gasoline and utility bills, as surging oil prices caused by the Middle East conflict cloud the outlook for an economy heavily reliant on fuel imports from the region.
The bond markets are signalling that we’re in a world of higher interest rates, geopolitical threats, expensive oil and uncertain politics.
Lale Akoner, eToro global market strategist, explains:
“Government bond yields are rising across the US, UK, Europe and Japan as investors reassess inflation risks, higher energy prices, political uncertainty and growing fiscal pressure. The move higher in yields suggests markets are increasingly accepting a ‘higher-for-longer’ interest rate environment.
“The concern for investors is that higher yields do not stay confined to bond markets. They can weigh on equity valuations, particularly in growth and technology sectors, while also increasing pressure on governments carrying large debt burdens.
“Markets are also becoming more sensitive to geopolitical risks. Rising oil prices and fears of disruption around the Strait of Hormuz are reviving inflation concerns at a time when many central banks were hoping price pressures would continue easing.
“For now, bond markets appear to be signalling that investors should prepare for a more volatile environment where higher borrowing costs remain a key market theme well into the second half of the year”.
Fears of 'stagflationary shock' hitting bonds
The jump in the oil price today has “exacerbated fears about a stagflationary shock” and pushed global bond yields even higher this morning, says Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank.
He told clients:
Admittedly, if you look over the entire conflict, bond yields have moved in lockstep with oil, and Friday doesn’t look too anomalous. However, if you zoom in a bit, then yields have shifted from being broadly in line with the current price of oil to looking a bit high relative to it. That suggests some evidence of a small decoupling on Friday.
With these end-of-week moves, 30yr US yields hit their highest level since 2007, 30yr Japanese yields their highest since their introduction in 1999, 30yr gilts reached levels last seen in 1997, and 30yr German yields returned to 2011 levels.
China heading for slowdown after April's economic data disappoints
Weak economic data from China is also worrying investors this morning.
Chinese factory output growth slowed to 4.1%, year-on-year, in April, down from 5.7% in March, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed today. That was despite a jump in exports as customers tried to stockpile goods to avoid supply disruption from the Iran war.
Retail sales growth slowed to just 0.2% in April – the weakest reading since December 2022 - down from 1.7% in March.
China’s fixed asset investment declined – to a fall of 1.6% year-on-year in January-April, down from a 1.7% rise in January-March.
Lynn Song, ING’s chief economist for Greater China, says:
It suggests a steep drop-off of investment in April as geopolitical uncertainty may have weighed on investment decisions.
This disappointing April economic activity suggests growth will decelerate in the second quarter, after the first quarter comfortably beat expectations, Song adds.
Oil at near-two-week high
The oil price has risen this morning, which will put more pressure on government bond prices.
Brent crude is up 1.77% at $111.16 a barrel, its highest level in nearly two weeks.
Anxiety over the Iran war rose today after a nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates was attacked over the weekend.
Tony Sycamore, analyst at IG, says:
These attacks serve as a pointed warning: any renewed US or Israeli strikes on Iran could quickly trigger more proxy assaults on Gulf energy and critical infrastructure.
French finance minister: bonds are not collapsing
French finance minister Roland Lescure has revealed that G7 finance ministers will discuss the situation in the bond markets when they meet in Paris today.
Lescure argued that global bond markets are undergoing a correction.
Asked if bond markets were collapsing, Lescure told reporters:
“They’re undergoing a correction - I wouldn’t say they’re collapsing”.
“We are no longer in a period where public debt is not a subject.”
Updated
Burnham: I support the fiscal rules
The global bond market sell-off means this is a bad time for UK politics to be gripped by a leadership crisis.
British government debt got hammered on Friday, as Keir Starmer’s premiership circled the plughole and likely challenger Andy Burnham limbered up to return to parliament by contesting a by-election in Makerfield, in the North West of England.
The yields on 30-year UK debt hit their highest since 1998 last week, with 10-year gilt yields the highest since 2008.
Those losses came amid warnings that if Starmer is replaced, the Labour government might shift towards higher spending and borrowing, cutting loose from the fiscal rules designed to reassure the bond markets.
However, Burnham tried to calm concerns that he might drive up spending. Over the weekend he told ITV:
“I support the fiscal rules, there needs to be a plan to get debt down.”
That pledge might provide some support for UK bonds today….
Bond market rout deepens as inflation fears keep rising
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
The bond market is doing its traditional job of intimidating governments – and investors – as fears of an inflation shock from the Iran war grow.
The bond sell-off which gripped the markets last week is continuing this morning, driving up governments’ cost of borrowing from Tokyo to Washington DC.
With the strait of Hormuz still largely closed, the prospect of a lengthy period of shortages of oil and gas, which would push up costs of energy, transport and food, is growing.
Last Friday, global government borrowing costs soared – with the yield (or interest rate) on Japan’s 30-year bond hitting 4% for the first time.
US and eurozone debt also suffered, as traders bet that central banks will fored to raise interest rates, or abandon hopes of rate cuts, to stem the inflationary waves hitting the global economy.
As analysts at ING put it:
First, even if the war were to end tomorrow, energy prices may not fall as far as many expect. Significant drawdowns in oil inventories are likely to keep upward pressure on prices for some time yet.
Second, natural gas prices currently look too low. There is meaningful upside risk if disruptions persist into the third quarter, particularly as competition intensifies between Asian and European buyers for LNG.
It’s a reminder that, for all the political noise, its energy prices will remain the dominant force for central banks. It’s why we’re expecting rate hikes from the Bank of England and European Central Bank in June, and why we no longer expect a Federal Reserve rate cut until December.
This morning… US and Japanese government bonds have extended their losses, pushing up yields (which rises when bond prices fall.)
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields jumped to their highest since February 2025 this morning at 4.6310%.
Yields on the 30-year Japanese government bond hit the highest level on record at 4.200%, while while the 10-year yield reached its highest since October 1996 at 2.800%.
The agenda
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Today: G7 finance ministers meet in Paris
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10am BST: IMF to present its Article IV report into the UK (an annual check on the country’s fiscal position).
Updated
