Bank of England Governor Bailey said weak productivity and other shocks are among the drivers of rising public debt in advanced economies, and that higher public debt in turn is raising borrowing costs. He described the situation as a very, very severe structural challenge and cited population ageing and pressure to increase defence spending as additional factors. Government bond yields have risen sharply in recent months; earlier this week the UK 10-year gilt yield hit a near 20-year high and l

US ISM non-manufacturing PMI rose to 55.4 in August from 54.1, beating consensus 54.2.

The National Healthcare Security Administration said it will continue expanding centralized procurement coverage and regularly carry out nationally organized centralized procurement for drugs and medical consumables, while guiding provinces to advance interprovincial alliance purchasing. It will stick to the rule that new drugs are excluded from centralized procurement and non-new drugs are included, and will target high-clinical-use, inflated-price products—including traditional Chinese medicine, biologics and medical consumables—to lower patient costs. The agency said it will optimize procurement rules under the principles of steady clinical supply, quality assurance, anti-internal competition and preventing bid collusion, emphasizing clinical demand and implementing a ‘‘remove abnormally high prices; do not award volume to abnormally low prices’’ policy to steer fair competition and crack down on collusion. It will coordinate with the drug regulator to tighten quality thresholds, carry out full-coverage inspections of nationally selected suppliers and product sampling, and impose strict sanctions on firms found in breach.