The Indian government will make a decision this week on whether to allow foreign airlines to purchase stakes in Indian carriers, said a report by the Times of India on Wednesday.
The move is one which could potentially provide a lifeline to cash-strapped carriers such as Kingfisher Airlines, with Indian carriers now facing an accumulated debt of $16 billion and cumulative losses of over $8.5 billion.
The rise of emerging markets to prosperity and global influence will be short-lived unless the challenges to longer-term economic growth are addressed. But, a massive increase in the number of competent and motivated leaders and professionals will be needed in order to overcome these challenges head-on. A major transformation of tertiary education in emerging markets is thus a fundamental condition of sustainable growth.
China’s trade balance swung back into positive territory in March as the country’s import growth slowed from a 13-month peak and exports grew faster than expected. March’s surplus of $5.35 billion came as a surprise to many analysts and sharply reverses China’s massive $31.5 billion deficit in February – the country’s largest trade gap in 22 years.
Returning to surplus, exports grew 8.9 percent year-on-year to $165.6 billion while imports grew 5.3 percent y-o-y to $160.3 billion, trade data showed on Tuesday.
In order to be a bank that serves the world’s needs and addresses global challenges, the World Bank needs internal reforms congruous to a changing world order. To find relevance, the World Bank needs to be a truly global institution with a special responsibility vis-à-vis the world’s poorest countries and a commitment to helping middle-income countries face their own challenges.
A quick preview of the key economic events for the upcoming week: After Spain’s disappointing debt auction last week, investors are anticipating Italy’s performance as it heads for its own debt sale later this week. Spain and Italy, both saved by the ECB’s LTRO cheap liquidity injection, are generally the two countries considered most susceptible to a second round of problems that could break the euro and disrupt the eurozone’s recovery process.
Monday, April 9
Any individual or company that has been convicted of food safety crimes in China could be banned from the food industry for life, claimed a report by the China Daily on Monday, as the government continues to crack down on food safety violations.
Last week, China’s State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) implemented a new nationwide regulation that would force all restaurants to display notices of their food safety levels at their storefront.
Asia’s two largest economies, China and Japan, have agreed to coordinate their efforts to support any IMF funding, said Japanese finance minister Jun Azumi on Monday, with ministers from both countries preparing for a G-20 meeting in Washington later this month.
“Rather than make decisions independently, we’ve agreed to consult each other very closely,” said Azumi, after meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xie Xuren over the weekend.
The global community will face two important decisions in Washington, DC this month; they must decide on how to proceed with the European debt crisis as well as on whom to pick as the next World Bank president. Yet, complacency, coupled with rigid practices, could very well mean that the best decisions will not be made, and the world will instead be forced to settle for second best.
The eurozone has announced it will keep the benchmark lending rate at the current 1 percent, with the ECB chief Mario Draghi saying it is still premature for the Bank to even consider an exit from its monetary easing policies.
For the last few weeks, analysts and policymakers have been discussing steps for a backup plan should the ECB decide to exit the money market after nearly three years, and 1 trillion euros of cheap bailout loans.
Human trafficking is an industry worth $32 billion, and at any one time 2.4 million people suffer the misery of this humiliating and degrading crime, with 80 percent of them exploited as sexual slaves, says the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
At a special UN General Assembly meeting on trafficking, the Drugs and Crime office based in Vienna said only one out of every 100 victims is ever rescued, and two out of three victims are women.
