The U.S. budget deficit will fall to $642 billion this year from $1.1 trillion in 2012 as higher tax revenues and spending cuts take effect, said the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday.
With no further congressional action, the CBO added that the deficit will fall to $378 billion by 2015, a sharp contrast to the $1 trillion budget deficits in each of President Barack Obama’s first four years in office.
Keen to avoid the kind of onslaught on tax cheats being waged in EU and U.S., Singapore, the world’s fourth largest offshore financial centre, said on Tuesday it will sign up to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s multilateral treaty on sharing tax details, a move that would make it harder for cross-border tax cheats to operate.
Health and government institutions in Germany on Tuesday pledged to launch a full-scale investigation into several pharmaceutical companies, after a report emerged this week that at least 50,000 former East German patients may have been used as human guinea pigs in drug trials from 1983 until the fall of communism in 1989.
Fitch Ratings on Tuesday upgraded Greece’s sovereign credit rating to ‘B-‘ from ‘CCC’, citing the country’s progress in rebalancing the economy, while achieving some “semblance of political and social stability.”
Though Greece’s credit status still remains six levels below investment grade, the one-notch upgrade reflected the improved outlook on the economy, which has languished in junk territory since 2010.
The European Union is the new “sick man of Europe” as public support for the European project falls and distrust between countries grows, according to a Pew study that surveyed the damaged caused by the region’s prolonged debt crisis.
Approval of the 27-nation European Union, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, has sunk in five of the eight European Union countries surveyed by the Pew Research Centre in 2013.
Cyprus on Monday received its first tranche of a 10 billion euro bailout package from international creditors agreed earlier this year, after the near-collapse of the country’s banking sector.
Cyprus received 2 billion euros on Monday and will get as much as 1 billion euros more in June as the Mediterranean island’s aid package was activated, the European Stability Mechanism, the euro area’s permanent backstop fund, said in a statement.
The release came as finance ministers from the 17 euro countries also approved two fresh aid payments for Greece.
The U.S. military will spend close to $7 billion on logistical issues when it finally pulls out its troops and equipment from Afghanistan by the end of next year, estimated defense experts to Bloomberg on Sunday.
The French government is considering a tax on the sale of all Internet-linked mobile devices, including smartphones and e-readers, in order to “protect the nation’s cultural exception … in the face of digital innovation,” reported the Financial Times on Monday.
Lakshimi Mittal, owner of the world’s largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal, has urged Europe to erect trade barriers to protect its manufacturers, claiming the future of the European Union manufacturing depended on politicians helping the industry face what he said was unfair competition from China, reported the Financial Times on Sunday.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Mittal accused Chinese producers of overproducing despite weak market demand, lowering the price of the metal globally.
This week, Greece’s Prime Minister Antonis Samaras heads to China with a delegation to discuss possible investments in his country’s beleaguered economy. On Saturday, the suspension of the U.S. debt ceiling officially ends.
Monday, May 13
