Milestones and meetings | Financial Times

Hello and welcome to the working week.

Jonathan is taking a well-deserved break for the next fortnight, so I’ll be taking you through forthcoming events to look out for.

A few world leaders are taking to the air this week. Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is off on his delayed state visit to China and French president Emmanuel Macron is visiting the Netherlands.

President Joe Biden will be the guest of honour in Northern Ireland as the region marks 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement. The US leader is arriving on Tuesday and will then begin a tour that also takes in the Republic of Ireland, including visiting some distant cousins, before flying back to Washington on Friday.

While Biden’s Belfast visit marks a milestone in the Irish peace process, Jude Webber’s excellent Big Read shows that a quarter of a century on some of the paramilitaries that took part in the revolt against British rule have now morphed into something closer to organised crime groups.

Northern Ireland remains on a difficult path. The region’s government is locked up by political paralysis as the Democratic Unionist party has boycotted the region’s power-sharing executive for more than a year in protest at the proposed Brexit deal, meaning the rudderless region is missing out on investment.

Steve Baker, UK minister for Northern Ireland, has urged the DUP to “seize the moment” of the Good Friday Agreement and end its protest or the British government may have to consider direct rule from London.

While Biden is out of Washington, the IMF and the World Bank have moved in and will be holding their annual spring meeting. Expect a lot of talk about inflation and the plans to bring it under control. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey is due to speak on Wednesday and US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen will brief the press on Friday.

This is my first week in the driver’s seat for the Week Ahead and there’s a lot to choose from, but my eye was caught by the big tobacco companies that will on Friday have to pay a collective $9bn to 46 US states as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. The amount is a percentage of the overall revenues tobacco companies make for the year, and they will continue to pay it while cigarettes are sold in the US.

Contact me at david.hindley@ft.com with your feedback, or if there’s anything interesting happening next week that you think I should cover. If you’re reading the Week Ahead as an email, just hit reply.

Economic data

A few pieces of economic data to keep an eye on this week. Canada has an interest rate announcement on Tuesday and the European Central Bank is releasing long-term interest rate statistics for March on Friday. As part of its spring meeting, the IMF will on Tuesday release its global financial stability report, an overview of the health of the worldwide economy.

There are also a clutch of countries releasing data on consumer prices for March, including China on Tuesday and the US on Wednesday, which will offer an indication of how efforts to calm inflation are going.

Companies

In the UK, supermarket chain Tesco reports its results for 2022. This will be a bellwether for how UK shoppers are adapting to higher prices. The supermarket boss said in January that inflation had not yet peaked and as a result consumers would move towards cheaper products. There are a few other retail results such as Christian Dior on Tuesday and LVMH on Wednesday that will offer a peak at how the luxury market has fared.

Towards the end of the week banks including Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo report first-quarter results, the first since the recent crisis that took down Silicon Valley Bank.

Key economic and company reports

Here is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.

Monday

• Turkey, employment rate data for February

• Greece, March Consumer Price Index (CPI) data

• UK, Philippe Schaillee takes over as CEO of Costa Coffee, the UK’s largest coffee chain

Tuesday

• UK, Barclays published consumer spending data for March including trends in credit and debit usage

• Brazil, China, Denmark, Norway, Taiwan, Ukraine: March consumer price index (CPI)

• US, the IMF releases its global financial stability report

• Results: Boeing Q1, Christian Dior Q1

Wednesday

• Canada, Bank of Canada interest rate announcement. The bank has held rates steady at 4.5 per cent since January where it indicated it wanted to pause rate rises after a spate of aggressive increases in 2022

• US, Department of Labor releases March consumer price index (CPI) data

• Results: BlackRock Q1, LVMH Q1

Thursday

• Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, release Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March

• Opec monthly oil market report

• Results: Delta Air Lines Q1, Infosys FY, Tesco FY

Friday

• ECB, Long-term interest rates statistics for March

• UK, Office for National Statistics releases productivity data

• US, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen press briefing at IMF/World Bank spring meeting

• Results: Citi Q1, JPMorgan Chase Q1, Wells Fargo Q1, 888 Holdings FY

World events

Finally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week

Monday

• Easter Monday bank holiday, many financial markets are closed including in Europe, Canada and Hong Kong

• UK, 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement that ended 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland and set up the region’s current power-sharing agreement

Tuesday

• Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva starts his week-long visit to China that was postponed at the end of last month. Lula plans to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping and sign about 20 agreements. Before his visit was postponed Lula’s foreign minister Mauro Vieira told the FT the Brazilian president was interested in discussing a peace club to bring an end to the Ukraine conflict

• French president Emmanuel Macron visits the Netherlands

• Switzerland, the country’s two chambers of parliament hold an extraordinary session to debate the deal negotiated by the government for UBS to buy Credit Suisse

• UK, Joe Biden arrives in Northern Ireland for events to celebrate the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. He is expected to travel to the Republic of Ireland later in the week

• UK, junior doctors stage a 96-hour walkout in protest over pay

Wednesday

• Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights hears the case brought by Geneva union action community against the Swiss government over its ban on protests imposed early in the Covid-19 pandemic

• Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey speaks at an Institute of International Finance event on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank spring meetings

Thursday

• France, The line-up of films that will feature at the 76th Cannes Festival in May is revealed

• India, Rahul Gandhi former leader of the Opposition Congress is in court for a second hearing to appeal against the defamation charge that has barred him from parliament

• UK, NHS releases figures for February and March including accident and emergency waiting times

• US, Jury selection for voting-machine maker Dominion’s $1.6bn lawsuit against Fox News. The case is set to start the following week. The jury will decide if Fox acted with “actual malice” or “reckless disregard” when broadcasting false claims about Dominion

Friday

• France, The country’s Constitutional Council rules on Emmanuel Macron’s proposed pension reforms. The council’s decision will be a crucial point for the president’s push to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, which has seen large protests and the police using tactics not deployed since the gilets jaunes movement

• US, National Rifle Association holds its annual meeting. Former president Donald Trump and his former vice-president Mike Pence will speak. Trump recently pleaded not guilty to 34 charges in a New York court

Saturday

• Israel, the Jewish orthodox Holy Fire ceremony is held at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

• UK, Grand National horse race is set to be held in Liverpool

• US, the currently declared Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, disclose campaign finance details for the past three months. The data will give an idea of which big donors are backing each candidate so far and how much goodwill Trump and Hayley hold among the party’s grassroots supporters

Sunday

• Japan, Foreign ministers for G7 countries including the UK and the US meet to discuss issues such as Ukraine and China

• UK, Amazon workers in Coventry strike over pay. While the union is not officially recognised by the company, a strike in January was a milestone for unions that have long struggled to gain a foothold in logistics