Global investment activity fell by nearly a third in the second quarter of 2013, after two consecutive quarters of increases, according to new OECD data. And unlike earlier stages of the global economic crisis, when emerging economies played a counter cyclical role in international investment flows, the declines in Q2 have been across the board. Three key factors are likely to have the most effect on global investor confidence in the short-term.
China’s economy must continue growing by at least 7.2 percent per year in order to sustain the unemployment rate from rising, said Premier Li Keqiang in remarks published on Monday.
In a national workers’ meeting two weeks ago, Li told the attendees that the government was hoping to cap the urban unemployment rate at 4 percent, requiring GDP growth to maintain at a medium-to-high speed in order to so.
The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, should face a Treasury inquiry into the amount of taxes he pay each year, said an influential committee of U.K. MPs on Monday, arguing that some of the tax exemptions that his estate enjoy had created an “unfair advantage” for several of his businesses.
Despite a sharp rise in food inflation, U.K. families are spending 8.5 percent less on food today than what they did before the financial crisis; but the savings had been mostly due to a switch in consumption to cheaper, less healthy choices, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) on Monday.
The IFS’s research found that food prices rose by 33 percent between 2007 and 2013; yet somehow the average household food expenditure fell to just $148.61 a month from 2010-2012, compared to $162.46 in the two years earlier.
The U.S. government saw a budget deficit of $680.3 billion for fiscal year 2013, showed Treasury Department data on Wednesday, a 37 percent drop from the fiscal 2012 deficit and marking the first time in five years that the figure has been below $1 trillion.
In the long run, India’s economy cannot grow in an unstable neighbourhood; as such building friendly relations with Pakistan is essential. Yet for too long, India’s approach to Pakistan have been fundamentally wrong; rather than engaging only with the liberal elite or the hard-line conservatives, India should build ties with Pakistan’s oft-forgotten middle class – who yearn only for economic progress.
All too often, India’s strategic approach to Pakistan is pulled in opposite directions by polarised sections of the establishment.
Nearly 40,000 Chinese couples living in Bejing have filed for during the first nine months of this year, according to the China Daily on Tuesday, a year-on-year increase of close to 41 percent – with experts speculating that couples had been deliberately avoiding a property tax imposed earlier this year.
Japan’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), is set to investigate the nation’s three largest banks for transactions with the Yakuza, according to Reuters on Tuesday.
The probe is part of a wider investigation into banks’ involvements in Yakuza-related financial transactions; and comes after Mizuho Financial, the nation’s second largest bank, admitted to lending 200 million yen ($2 million) to criminal gangs.
Singapore has once again come out top as the world’s best place to run a business, according to the World Bank’s annual competiveness survey, with the Ukraine showing the highest levels of improvement, while Russia made the most progress among the BRICS.
The BRICS are emerging as one of the world’s largest providers of foreign aid. Yet, the BRICS countries do not regard themselves as “donors” – choosing to work with “development partners”, rather than “aid recipients”. This has both positive and negatives implications for the “development partners.”
