Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

U.S. to relaunch small business pandemic aid program Monday with new fraud checks

By Koh Gui Qing and Michelle Price

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government is introducing new “robust safeguards” when the third round of the country’s main small business pandemic aid program launches on Monday after fraudsters and ineligible companies claimed cash last year, administration officials said on Friday.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) will kick off the third round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) on Monday, opening initially to community financial institutions and to all lenders shortly thereafter, the officials said during a media briefing.

In contrast to the program’s previous two rounds during which loan applications were automatically approved upon submission, the SBA will vet the initial information, slightly slowing approvals. That process will involve running automated identity and data verification checks overnight, the officials said.

The additional $284 billion authorized for the program in a December relief bill is expected to be enough to meet incoming demand and will not run out, senior administration officials said.

The new safeguards were first reported by Reuters earlier on Friday, citing two sources familiar with the process.

The PPP, created by Congress to help small businesses hurt by coronavirus pandemic lockdowns keep staff on payrolls, enabled participating lenders to dish out $525 billion worth of loans during two rounds last year.

Government watchdogs and congressional investigators have warned that the program has attracted fraudsters, while many large and listed companies, as well as blacklisted companies, gamed the program’s rules to take cash.

The Department of Justice, working with other agencies, has charged more than 80 individuals with stealing more than $250 million from the program.

Congress also made several changes to the program when it reauthorized it, including allowing small companies which suffered a 25% or greater decline in 2020 revenues to apply for a second loan of up to $2 million. It also tightens language promising lenders will not be held responsible if borrowers break the rules, pledging no enforcement action may be taken against the lender if it acted in good faith and complied with relevant federal and state regulations. That tighter language had been lobbied for by lenders, who worried they would be swept up in a broader federal probe into PPP fraud, putting more onus on the SBA to vet applications.

Dan O’Malley, CEO of Numerated, a fintech company that provides software for roughly 125 banks to process PPP loans, said the program changes were positive but had caused it to become “really complicated” and warned that could create new technical hitches.

(Reporting by Michelle Price, Koh Gui Qing and Pete Schroeder; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Jonathan Oatis and Andrea Ricci)

S&P 500, Nasdaq hit record highs as stimulus hopes outweigh dire jobs report

By Devik Jain and Medha Singh

(Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq scaled new highs on Friday, as hopes of more economic stimulus to ride out a pandemic-led downturn eclipsed concerns over a significant loss of pace in a labor market recovery.

The U.S. government’s employment report showed the economy shed jobs for the first time in eight months in December as the country buckled under an onslaught of COVID-19 infections.

However, with a backstop of nearly $900 billion in stimulus approved by the government last week and expectations of a bigger fiscal package and infrastructure spending under President-elect Joe Biden’s administration, Wall Street’s main indexes have surged to all-time highs.

“It’s hard to ignore the staggering drop in jobs from December, but the market is poised to shrug off the disappointing data in the face of the vaccine rollout, strong likelihood of stimulus, and an accommodative Fed,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*TRADE Financial.

Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors rose in early trading with healthcare, consumer discretionary and real estate leading gains.

Financial and materials, which are among the three top performing sectors this week, slipped.

The S&P 500 closed above 3,800 points for the first time on Thursday, while the Dow and the Nasdaq are on track for fourth straight weekly gains.

Some Wall Street bankers, however, expect a pullback in the near-term as exuberance from unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus have led to “frothy” asset prices.

Market participants looked past mounting calls among congressional Democrats for impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time, two days after his false claims of election fraud helped encourage a mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol.

“The irony is that … despite the chaos we got more clarity and certainty that Biden is the president and that there is Democratic government,” said John Petrides, portfolio manager at Tocqueville Asset Management in New York.

“The political risk is behind us and the market is rallying on that.”

At 10:01 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 29.67 points, or 0.09%, to 31,070.44, the S&P 500 gained 16.41 points, or 0.43%, to 3,819.94 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 109.63 points, or 0.84%, to 13,177.11.

Electric car-maker Tesla Inc’s shares were set to rise for the 11th day, taking its market capitalization to more than $800 billion for the first time ever.

Micron Technology Inc jumped 2.1% after the chipmaker forecast second-quarter revenue above estimates, as a global shift to remote work and a recent uptick in 5G smartphone adoption drove demand for its chips.

U.S.-listed shares of Baidu Inc gained 6.4% on plans to form a company to make smart electric vehicles, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.4-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.5-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 67 new 52-week highs and no new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 430 new highs and seven new lows.

(Reporting by Devik Jain and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Maju Samuel)

London declares emergency over ‘out of control’ coronavirus

By Michael Holden and Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) – London declared a major incident on Friday because its hospitals were at risk of being overwhelmed by a highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus racing “out of control” across the United Kingdom.

Britain has the world’s fifth worst official death toll from COVID-19 at over 78,000, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has shuttered the economy and rushed out vaccines faster than its neighbours in a bid to stem the pandemic.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, from the opposition Labour Party, said hospital beds in the capital would run out within the next few weeks because the spread of the virus was “out of control”:

“We are declaring a major incident because the threat this virus poses to our city is at crisis point.”

London, which vies with Paris for the status of Europe’s richest city, has a population of over 9 million.

The designation of “major incident” is usually reserved for attacks or grave accidents, notably those likely to involve “serious harm, damage, disruption or risk to human life or welfare, essential services, the environment or national security”.

London’s last “major incident” was the Grenfell Tower fire in a high-rise residential block in 2017, when 72 people died.

VACCINE FEARS

Khan said there were parts of London where 1 in 20 people had the virus. The pressure on the ambulance service, which was now dealing with up to 9,000 emergency calls a day, meant firefighters were being drafted in to drive vehicles, and police officers would follow.

The Office for National Statistics estimated that 1.1 million people in England had the coronavirus in the week to Jan. 2, the equivalent of one person in 50.

Britain, the first country to approve vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca, on Friday approved Moderna’s shot, hoping to begin administering it this spring. It also agreed to purchase an additional 10 million doses.

However, transport minister Grant Shapps said there were fears that some vaccines might not work properly against a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in South Africa.

“This is a very big concern for the scientists,” he told LBC radio.

A laboratory study by the U.S. drugmaker Pfizer, not yet peer-reviewed, indicated that the vaccine it is making, developed by Germany’s BioNTech, does work against one key mutation in the new variants found in Britain and South Africa.

(Reporting by Michael Holden, Alistair Smout, Andy Bruce and Kate Holton; writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

China central bank will prioritise monetary policy stability in 2021 – Xinhua

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will prioritise stability in monetary policy in 2021, and any steps to exit stimulus measures will have a small impact on the economy, the Xinhua news agency on Friday quoted central bank governor Yi Gang as saying.

The central bank will use various policy tools to keep liquidity reasonably ample and ensure that the growth of broad money supply and total social financing basically matches nominal economic growth, Yi was quoted as saying.

China will provide more financial support to small firms, technological innovation and green development, Yi added.

“In 2021, monetary policy should prioritise stability to maintain … sustainability,” Yi said.

The central bank had said on Wednesday it would make its monetary policy flexible, targeted and appropriate in 2021, focusing on supporting small firms.

The bank has rolled out a raft of measures, including cuts in interest rates and reserve ratios since early-2020 to support the virus-hit economy.

But it has shifted to a steadier stance in recent months and kept its benchmark lending rate, the loan prime rate, unchanged since May.

Policy sources have said that the central bank will scale back support for the economy in 2021 and cool credit growth but that fears of derailing a recovery from a pandemic-induced slump and debt defaults are likely to prevent it from tightening any time soon.

Yi said any steps to exit stimulus measures will have a small impact on the economy this year because the central bank had refrained from adopting zero or negative interest rates.

While the ratio of China’s overall debt level increased last year as the pandemic dealt a blow to the economy, the debt ratio is likely to return to a basically stable track this year.

The rise in the ratio of China’s total debt to gross domestic product has started to slow since the third quarter of last year, Yi added without elaborating.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank, sees the macro leverage ratio jumping by about 30 percentage points in 2020 to over 270%.

Yi said China will continue to let the market play a decisive role in setting the yuan’s exchange rate in 2021, but it will keep the yuan basically stable.

The yuan was on course for its best week in two months, despite fresh measures rolled out by the central bank to ease capital inflows and slow the currency’s rally.

The currency has gained up nearly 1% against the greenback in the first week of the new year, building on a near 7% rise in 2020.

The central bank will push interest rate reforms to improve the transmission of its loan prime rate (LPR) to bank lending rates, and further liberalise deposit rates, Yi added.

China will also step up financial support for green development, Yi said, with measures including improving systems for green finance standards, developing green finance products and strengthening international cooperation in the sector.

(Reporting by Judy Hua and Kevin Yao in Beijing, Meg Shen in Hong Kong; editing by John Stonestreet, Robert Birsel and Hugh Lawson)

Dollar retreats from weekly high after U.S. jobs report

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The dollar pulled back from a one-week high against a basket of major currencies on Friday after a dismal December U.S. payrolls report highlighted the need for further stimulus measures to prop up an economy battered by the coronavirus and its related government lockdown measures.

The Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls decreased by 140,000 in December, the first decline in eight months, well below expectations that called for a still-weak increase of 71,000 jobs. The unemployment rate was 6.7%. Economic data during the week leading up to Friday’s report indicated a stalling labor market.

The greenback had been climbing from a nearly three-year low on Thursday and reached a high of 90.132 on Friday ahead of the data, its highest level since Jan. 1, as a rise in U.S. yields helped fuel the unwinding of bearish bets on the currency, with traders taking profits against the euro in particular.

Still, the pullback was somewhat muted as investors expect additional stimulus measures to help buttress the economy until vaccine rollouts allow for the easing of lockdown measures.

“We have weaker-than-expected non-farm payrolls on the surface here, but not truly shocking considering the unexpected miss, job loss recorded … on Wednesday,” said Erik Bregar, head of FX strategy at Exchange Bank Of Canada, Toronto.

“Hence, we saw the very tepid knee-jerk bid for the broader U.S. dollar, then sell-off. The much better-than-expected wage growth, which nobody was expecting, also takes some of the sting out of the headline job loss.”

The dollar index last rose 0.043% at 89.84.

Democrats won effective control of the Senate this week, while chaos gripped Washington. Congressional Democrats on Friday weighed impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time after his false claims of election fraud helped encourage a mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol. [nL1N2JJ0UU]

The Democrats’ Senate seat wins give President-elect Joe Biden latitude to push through more spending, which some analysts predict will fuel risk appetite and be negative for bonds and the dollar, although a strongly bearish consensus outlook for the greenback at the end of 2020 has eased somewhat.

The dollar index dropped 7% in 2020 and as much as 0.9% in the first few days of the new year on expectations of U.S. fiscal stimulus. But since hitting its lowest level since March 2018, the greenback has found some footing, climbing as much as 1%.

Both the euro and the pound strengthened against the dollar in the wake of the payrolls report. The euro was last down 0.14% to $1.2253 while Sterling was last trading at $1.3588, up 0.18% on the day.

Bitcoin hit a fresh all-time high of $41,802.84, and last rose 4.32% to $41,217.91, after smashing through $40,000 for the first time on Thursday.

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Currency bid prices at 9:49AM (1449 GMT)

Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid

Previous Change

Session

Dollar index 89.8400 89.8150 +0.04% +0.00% +90.1320 +89.6640

Euro/Dollar $1.2254 $1.2270 -0.13% +0.30% +$1.2285 +$1.2213

Dollar/Yen 103.8550 103.8300 +0.00% +0.53% +104.0850 +103.6300

Euro/Yen 127.27 127.37 -0.08% +0.27% +127.4600 +126.9600

Dollar/Swiss 0.8845 0.8855 -0.13% -0.04% +0.8884 +0.8825

Sterling/Dollar $1.3589 $1.3565 +0.24% -0.48% +$1.3636 +$1.3540

Dollar/Canadian 1.2697 1.2690 +0.05% -0.30% +1.2707 +1.2659

Aussie/Dollar $0.7769 $0.7769 +0.02% +1.01% +$0.7798 +$0.7741

Euro/Swiss 1.0838 1.0860 -0.20% +0.29% +1.0863 +1.0826

Euro/Sterling 0.9015 0.9044 -0.32% +0.87% +0.9050 +0.8994

NZ $0.7252 $0.7256 -0.01% +1.03% +$0.7280 +$0.7240

Dollar/Dollar

Dollar/Norway 8.3955 8.4260 -0.32% -2.19% +8.4630 +8.3630

Euro/Norway 10.2895 10.3400 -0.49% -1.70% +10.3610 +10.2715

Dollar/Sweden 8.2073 8.1717 +0.12% +0.15% +8.2293 +8.1809

Euro/Sweden 10.0595 10.0473 +0.12% -0.18% +10.0690 +10.0358

(Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Oil touches fresh 11-month highs, shrugging off unrest in Washington

By Laura Sanicola

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil prices rose on Thursday, shrugging off surprising political unrest in the United States, as markets remain focused on Saudi Arabia’s pledge to cut oil output by more than expected.

Brent crude rose 28 cents to $54.58 a barrel by 11:35 a.m. EST (1635 GMT) after touching $54.90, a fresh high not seen since before the first COVID-19 lockdowns in the West.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was up 30 cents to $50.93, after hitting a high at $51.28.

On Wednesday, a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol after he urged them to protest Congress’s validation of his election loss. Crude futures prices briefly dipped during the unrest.

Oil prices have been supported this week by a pledge by Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, to cut output by an additional 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in February and March.

“By next month, this bull market could re-establish into higher levels mainly with the benefit of Saudi Arabia’s unexpected voluntary 1 mb production cut,” Ritterbusch added.

UBS analysts raised their forecast for Brent to $60 per barrel by mid-year, citing the Saudi output decision.

“Saudi Arabia …intimately knows the relationship between the oil price and the global inventory levels. Lower inventories equal higher prices,” SEB chief commodity analyst Bjarne Schieldrop said.

Global equities were higher, as investors believe President-elect Joe Biden would be empowered to spend more freely following victories by two Democrats senators in Georgia that gave them control of both chambers of U.S. Congress.

“Expected stimulus measures under a Biden administration that will likely include significant infrastructure investment represents a supportive consideration capable of boosting gasoline and diesel demand,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Illinois.

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning and Aaron Sheldrick; editing by Kirsten Donovan and Marguerita Choy)

Elon Musk overtakes Amazon’s Bezos to become world’s richest person – Bloomberg News

(Reuters) – Tesla Inc chief and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk surpassed Amazon.com Inc’s top boss Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest man, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Including Thursday’s gains in Tesla shares, Musk had a net worth of more than $188.5 billion, $1.5 billion more than Bezos, according to the report. (https://bloom.bg/3nnOz3U)

(Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

Mexico president urges peaceful resolution to conflicts after mob raids U.S. Capitol

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s president on Thursday said conflicts should be resolved peacefully in response to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday by hundreds of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump seeking to overturn his election defeat.

Speaking at a regular news briefing, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government adhered to the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries.

“We’re not going to intervene in these matters, which are up to the Americans to resolve, to deal with. That’s our policy, that’s what I can say,” he said, after being asked to comment on the events that provoked widespread outrage in the United States.

But he expressed regret that lives had been lost during the events in Washington on Wednesday, noting that he had always believed that conflicts, whether they were in Mexico or abroad, should be resolved “via dialogue and peaceful means”.

“We hope there will be peace, that democracy, which is the people’s power, will prevail, and that there are liberties,” said Lopez Obrador, who in 2006 led massive, peaceful protests in Mexico claiming that he had been robbed of the presidency.

U.S. police said four people died during the chaos in Washington – one from gunshot wounds and three from medical emergencies – and 52 people were arrested.

(Reporting by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Dave Graham)

U.S. labor market recovery stalling; trade deficit widens sharply

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The number of Americans filing first-time claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly dipped last week while staying extremely high, with the labor market recovery appearing to stall as a raging COVID-19 pandemic threatens to overwhelm the country.

Other data on Thursday showed layoffs announced by U.S. companies surged 18.9% in December. Still, the economy is unlikely to slide back into recession after the government approved additional pandemic relief in late December.

More fiscal stimulus is likely. Democrats on Wednesday completed a sweep of the two Senate seats up for grabs in runoff elections in Georgia, giving the party control of the chamber and boosting the prospects for President-elect Joe Biden’s legislative agenda. Congress on Thursday formally certified Biden’s election victory hours after hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

“Given that coronavirus caseloads remain extremely high and are set to increase in the near term due to holiday travel and parties, the labor market will remain soft over the next few months,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dipped 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 787,000 for the week ended Jan. 2, compared to 790,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 800,000 applications in the latest week.

Claims were likely held down by difficulties adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations around this time of the year. Unadjusted claims jumped 77,400 to 922,072 last week. Including a government-funded program for the self-employed, gig workers and others who do not qualify for the regular state unemployment programs, 1.08 million people filed claims last week.

Elevated claims are in line with other data that have suggested the economy was taking a beating from business restrictions and retrenchment in consumer spending because of the pandemic. Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s Dec. 15-16 meeting published on Wednesday showed policymakers expected soaring coronavirus cases “would be particularly challenging for the labor market in coming months.”

COVID-19 cases in the United States have jumped to more than 21 million, with the death toll exceeding 356,000 since the virus first emerged in China in late 2019, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In a separate report on Thursday, global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said U.S. companied announced 77,030 job cuts in December, up from 64,797 in November. That brought total layoffs in 2020 to a record 2.305 million, a 289% surge compared to 2019. Nearly half of the job cuts were due to the pandemic.

A report on Wednesday showed private companies shed workers in December for the first time in eight months. Data from Homebase, a payroll scheduling and tracking company, showed a steep decline in the number of employees working in December compared to November. The reports raised the risk that the economy lost jobs in December, though a survey this week showed factory employment rebounding last month.

U.S. stocks opened higher as investors bets on more pandemic aid under a Democrat-controlled Congress. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were lower.

MILLIONS ON BENEFITS

The government is scheduled to publish its closely followed employment report for December on Friday. According to a Reuters survey of economists, nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 71,000 jobs after rising by 245,000 in November.

That would be the smallest gain since the jobs recovery started in May and mean the economy recouped about 12.5 million of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April.

Jobless claims are above their 665,000 peak during the 2007-09 Great Recession, though they have dropped from a record 6.867 million in March. The government in late December approved nearly $900 billion in additional fiscal stimulus, including the renewal of a $300 unemployment supplement until March 14.

Economists expect the unemployment subsidy will push up first-time jobless claims after uncertainty whether it would be renewed contributed to a drop in applications in recent weeks.

Government-funded programs for the self-employed, gig workers and others who do not qualify for the state unemployment programs as well as those who have exhausted their benefits were also extended in the latest pandemic relief package.

The claims report also showed the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid declined 126,000 to 5.072 million in the week ending Dec. 26. But many have exhausted their eligibility, which is limited to six months in most states. About 4.517 million workers filed for extended unemployment benefits in the week ending Dec. 19.

Roughly 19.177 million people were receiving benefits under all programs in mid-December.

The economy plunged into recession in February. Though it is expected to have expanded at around a 5% annualized rate in the fourth quarter, the bulk of the rise in gross domestic product will likely come from the rebuilding of inventories after they were depleted early in the pandemic.

A third report from the Commerce Department on Thursday showed the trade deficit widened 8.0% to $68.1 billion in November, the highest since highest since August 2006. The deficit was boosted by a jump in imports as businesses replenished inventories.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani;Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

Exclusive-As Olympics loom, Japanese approval of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine unlikely till May

By Rocky Swift

TOKYO (Reuters) – Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine is unlikely to win approval in Japan until May due to requirements for local clinical trials, the distributor said, casting doubt over a nationwide vaccination rollout before the summer Tokyo Olympics.

With an eye on the Olympics due to start in late July, Japan has secured rights to at least 540 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from several Western developers, the biggest quantity in Asia and more than enough for its 126 million population.

But Tokyo faces a major regulatory bottleneck due to requirements for local clinical trials before requesting approval. Several other countries have fast-tracked the review process to expedite mass inoculations.

A Japanese trial of the Moderna vaccine, which has already won approval in the United States, Europe, Canada and Israel, is due to start this month.

Masayuki Imagawa, the head of the Japan vaccine business for Takeda Pharmaceutical Co, told Reuters it would likely take several more months to complete the trial and said securing approval in May was “the best case scenario”.

Takeda, Japan’s biggest drugmaker, is a critical component to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s aim to have enough vaccines for the population by June before the Summer Games, currently scheduled to start on July 23.

The company is handling domestic approval and imports of the Moderna shot and local production of Novavax Inc’s vaccine, whose development and approval in Japan is further off.

Moderna did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

LOGISTICAL HURDLES

A COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca Plc is also being trialed in Japan, leaving a shot developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech the only one currently under regulatory review in the country.

Japan has arranged to buy 120 million doses each from Pfizer and AstraZeneca. Through Takeda, it will secure 50 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and up to 250 million of the Novavax formula.

Leaving regulatory hurdles aside, production arrangements and logistical challenges could also complicate vaccine rollouts, as Japan is gripped by a third wave of the pandemic that has been the widest and deadliest yet.

New daily infections nationwide have hit fresh records in recent days, exceeding 7,000 on Thursday. The prime minister has declared a month-long state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighbouring prefectures.

“To achieve the needed production volume, there are various factories to be contracted and tech transfers to be done all over the world,” said Imagawa. “And whether that can all really come together to secure enough supply is a remaining challenge.”

Pfizer carried out combined Phase I and II trials of its vaccine candidate in Japan in the autumn and said in late December it had applied for approval in Japan for its vaccine, which at the time was already being distributed in Britain and the United States.

Suga said he hoped administering the Pfizer shot could start by the end of February.

AstraZeneca began Japan trials of its vaccine in September but has not yet applied for approval, even as it was approved in India, Britain, Argentina and El Salvador and filed to regulators in South Korea and Mexico.

An AstraZeneca spokeswoman declined to comment on the vaccine’s approval or distribution timeline in Japan, citing confidentiality with the government.

Takeda hoped to begin clinical trials of the Novavax candidate next month and, upon approval, it would be mass produced at the company’s facility in Yamaguchi prefecture, Imagawa said.