The euro zone ended nearly a decade of financial assistance and austerity in Greece early on Friday. After a marathon meeting that culminated with an agreement on debt relief, euro zone members have congratulated Greece for legislating hundreds of measures over the last three years and restoring economic growth. Greece is now due to successfully […]
Read moreThe ongoing tensions over international trade are the biggest economic risk to the euro zone, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said Thursday. Though the euro area enjoyed an economic expansion “above potential” in 2017, “the momentum is slowing down a bit at the moment, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF told […]
Read moreEuro zone finance ministers agreed in the early hours of Friday a debt relief package for Greece and a new disbursement of 15 billion euros as part of its current 86-billion-euro bailout program, the head of euro zone finance ministers said. The deal involves a 10-year extension of maturities on loans from the European Financial […]
Read more
FOR now, at least, when speaking of the trade dispute with America, China’s government is taking a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone. That helps explain the Chinese public’s surprisingly measured views of Donald Trump, and gives the Chinese government some breathing room to consider its options. The state media have so far taken the high ground. True, the […]
Read more
UNTIL recently the Abraaj Group, a private-equity firm based in Dubai, was riding high. It was one of just a few such firms focused on emerging markets, and a darling of “impact investors”, who seek social or environmental returns, not just financial ones. Assets under management of $13.6bn made it the largest private-equity firm in […]
Read moreIN his book about the use of language, “The King’s English”, Kingsley Amis describes a tug-of-war. On one side are “berks”, careless and coarse, who would destroy the language by polluting it. On the other side are priggish “wankers”, who would destroy it by sterilisation. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our […]
Read more
“CHOOSE truth. Choose Iliad,” entreats the voice-over of a television advertisement after images of President Donald Trump speechifying and footballers feigning injuries flash across the screen. That may seem pretentious for a mobile provider, but the advert is part of Iliad’s entry into Italy, which began on May 29th. The group, led by one of […]
Read more
AMONG Africa’s many foreign fixers and mining tycoons, few are more colourful than Dan Gertler, an Israeli diamond trader. Just over 20 years ago at the age of 23 he took a punt on Laurent Kabila, the rebel who in 1997 had just seized the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) from Mobutu Sese Seko, […]
Read more
THE shipping industry has encountered rough seas over the past decade. Between 1985 and 2007 trade volumes shot up at around twice the rate of global GDP but since 2012 their rate of growth has barely kept pace, leaving the industry with overcapacity. Freight rates for containers have plunged by a third since 2008. Worse may be to come. The industry does […]
Read moreCurrency, United States Finance
Dutch finance chief opposes latest Franco-German push to bolster euro area
French President Emmanuel Macron overcame a key hurdle in his plan to reform the euro area earlier this week, but there are more obstacles in the way, including the Netherlands. Macron had managed to get German Chancellor Angela Merkel on board to create a common budget to help reduce the economic divergences across the euro […]
Read more