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· Shanghai to quarantine all who arrive from mid to high-risk COVID-19 areas in China

Shanghai will quarantine all people coming to the city from mid to high-risk COVID-19 areas in China for 14 days, a city official said on Tuesday amid concerns about a resurgence of the disease following a cluster outbreak in Beijing.

Wu Jinglei, director of Shanghai’s health commission, told reporters during a briefing individuals coming into the city from high-risk areas will be placed under centralised quarantine.

· China reports 40 new coronavirus cases in mainland, 27 in Beijing

Mainland China reported 40 new confirmed coronavirus cases for June 15, down from 49 a day earlier, the National Health Authority said on Monday.

Twenty seven of the new cases were in Beijing, down from 36 a day earlier. The city is facing a new outbreak of the virus that is believed to have originated in a local grocery market.

· Singapore to remove most corona virus restrictions from Friday

Singapore will allow small gatherings and the reopening of restaurants and shops from June 19, its health ministry said on Monday, in a major easing of the city-state’s coronavirus restrictions.

Social gatherings of up to five people will be permitted from Friday, when the majority of activities resume after more than two months of restrictions, dubbed “circuit breaker” measures. Social distancing requirements will remain in place.

Tiny Singapore has one of the highest infection tallies in Asia, with more than 40,000 cases, because of mass outbreaks in dormitories for its migrant workers. Singapore reopened schools and some businesses earlier this month.

· Global coronavirus cases reach over 8 million as outbreak expands in Latin America

Global cases of the novel coronavirus reached over 8 million on Monday, as infections surge in Latin America and the United States and China grapple with fresh outbreaks.

The United States still leads the world with the highest number of infections, about 2 million or 25% of all reported cases. However, the outbreak is growing fastest in Latin America, which now accounts for 21% of all cases, according to a Reuters tally.

Brazil’s COVID-19 cases and deaths have surged to make it the No.2 hot spot in the world

· Beijing enacts more curbs to stop spread of coronavirus out of Chinese capital

Beijing authorities imposed more restrictions to stop the spread of a fresh outbreak of coronavirus in the Chinese capital to other provinces, banning outbound travel of high-risk people and suspending some transportation services out of the city.

Beijing officials reported on Tuesday 27 new confirmed COVID-19 cases for June 15, taking the cumulative number of infections in the city’s current outbreak to 106.

That makes it the most serious flare-up in China since February, stoking fears of a second-wave of the respiratory disease which emerged in the central city of Wuhan late last year and has now infected more than 8 million people worldwide.

· Trump team eyes $1 trillion infrastructure plan to spur economy, Bloomberg News says

The Trump administration is preparing a nearly $1 trillion infrastructure proposal as part of its push to spur the world’s largest economy back to life, Bloomberg News said on Monday.

The Department of Transportation's preliminary version reserves most funds for projects such as roads and bridges, but will also set aside money for 5G wireless infrastructure and rural broadband, the report bloom.bg/2Y4KQyH said, citing people familiar with the matter.

· U.S. expected to report record rise in monthly retail sales

U.S. retail sales likely experienced a record rise in May as 2.5 million Americans went back to work, although any rebound will retrace only a fraction of the historic drops in March and April amid the coronavirus lockdowns.

The monthly report, due to be released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday, is expected to show overall receipts at U.S. retailers jumped 8.0% last month, according to a Reuters poll of economists. That would exceed the previous record increase of 6.7% in October 2001 as Americans resumed spending following what was then a record pullback in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

While certainly an eye-catching bounce, it would retrace only about a quarter of the sales drop registered in the record back-to-back declines in the two previous months when widespread stay-at-home orders were imposed to stop the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus. Sales in April fell 16.4% after tumbling 8.3% in March.

· U.S. companies can work with Huawei on 5G, other standards: Commerce Department

The United States on Monday confirmed a Reuters report that it will amend its prohibitions on U.S. companies doing business with China’s Huawei to allow them to work together on setting standards for next-generation 5G networks.

The U.S. Commerce Department and other agencies signed off on the rule change, which is awaiting publication in the Federal Register, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The rule was sent to the Federal Register on Friday and is set to be published as early as Tuesday.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross confirmed the action in a statement to Reuters.

· BOJ keeps policy steady, says to pump $1 trillion via lending facilities

The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady on Tuesday and stuck to its view that the economy will gradually recover from the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, signalling that it has taken sufficient steps for now.

As widely expected, the central bank maintained its pledge to guide short-term interest rates at -0.1% and the 10-year government bond yield around 0% by a 8-1 vote.

It also made no changes to a range of programmes it put in place to channel money via financial institutions into companies faced with slumping sales from the pandemic.

The BOJ said it expects to pump around 110 trillion yen (£809 billion) to the economy via its market operations and lending facilities aimed at combating the hit from the health crisis.

· North Korean army 'fully ready' for action over South Korean propaganda leaflets - KCNA

North Korea’s army is ready to take action if defector groups push ahead with their campaign to send propaganda leaflets into North Korea, state media said on Tuesday, in the latest warning of retaliatory measures.

The General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) said it has been studying an “action plan” to reenter zones that had been demilitarised under a 2018 inter-Korean pact and “turn the front line into a fortress.”

· Workers on UK payrolls falls in May, vacancies plunge: ONS

The number of people on company payrolls fell by 1.7% in May as the coronavirus lockdown continued to hurt the labour market and vacancies plunged, official data showed on Tuesday.

The jobless rate unexpectedly held steady at 3.9% over the three months to April.

Economists polled by Reuters had mostly expected a rise in the unemployment rate to 4.7%.

· Swiss government expects economy to shrink 6.2% in 2020

Switzerland’s economy will shrink by 6.2% in 2020, the government said on Tuesday, the worst downturn in more than 40 years, as the country grapples with the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.

A gradual recovery is expected during the second half of the year provided a massive second wave of the disease along with severe restrictions does not occur, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

· Oil prices drop as rise in coronavirus cases stokes fuel demand fears

Oil prices slid on Tuesday on lingering concerns over the threat to fuel demand from the resurgence of new coronavirus infections around the world, though hopes for further cuts in crude supplies stemmed losses.

Brent crude LCOc1 fell 20 cents, or 0.5%, at $39.52 a barrel by 0424 GMT, having gained 2.6% on Monday. U.S. oil CLc1 dropped 21 cents, or nearly 0.6%, to $36.91 a barrel, after closing 2.4% higher in the previous session.

Coronavirus cases rose to more than 8 million worldwide by Monday, with infections surging in Latin America, while the United States and China are dealing with fresh outbreaks. But some observers said they didn’t expect to see any return to the stringent lockdowns seen at the start of the year.

· IEA sees largest drop of oil demand in history this year, before biggest-ever one-year jump in 2021

The International Energy Agency said on Tuesday that it expects the fall in oil demand this year to be the largest in history, but believes there are signs the market could reach “a more stable footing” over the coming months.

The IEA said oil demand in the second quarter, which saw the greatest impact from lockdown measures, was 17.8 million barrels per day lower when compared to the same period last year. That level of demand reduction was slightly less than the group had previously expected, although still unprecedented.

In its closely-watched oil market report, the Paris-based energy agency said on Tuesday that demand was expected to fall by 8.1 million barrels per day in 2020, before growing by 5.7 million barrels per day in 2021.

It means the expected drop in oil demand this year amounts to the largest in history, the IEA said, with the demand rise in 2021 forecast to be the largest one-year jump ever recorded “as activity begins to return to normal across vast swathes of the economy.”

Meanwhile, the IEA’s forecast for oil demand in 2020 is 91.7 million barrels per day, nearly 500,000 barrels higher per day than it expected in May, due to stronger-than-anticipated deliveries during the coronavirus lockdown.