Skip to main content

Eurozone will avoid recession.

 The euro­zone eco­nomy grew in the final quarter of 2022 des­pite eco­nom­ists’ pre­dic­tions of a down­turn, boost­ing hopes that the region will avoid a reces­sion. Milder weather and gov­ern­ment sup­port

Eurozone

cush­ioned the impact of soar­ing energy prices, help­ing the region’s eco­nomy expand by 0.1 per cent between the third and fourth quarter, accord­ing to data from Euro­stat yes­ter­day. The expan­sion was bet­ter than the 0.1 per cent drop fore­cast by eco­nom­ists polled by Reu­ters. The latest data mean the region man­aged to grow in each quarter of 2022 and by 3.5 per cent over the year.

John Leiper, chief invest­ment officer at Titan Asset Man­age­ment, said the fig­ures were «quite an achieve­ment» given the head­winds facing the region. Busi­nesses and house­holds also had to con­tend with higher bor­row­ing costs, as the European Cent­ral Bank raised interest rates by 2.5 per­cent­age points over the second half of last year to curb infla­tion that peaked at 10.6 per cent. The ECB will assess Yes­ter­day’s fig­ures as it seeks to ensure that infla­tion returns to its 2 per cent goal. Mar­kets expect the gov­ern­ing coun­cil to raise the bench­mark deposit rate by 0.5 per­cent­age points to 2.5 per cent when it meets tomor­row.

The cent­ral bank’s resolve is also likely to be bolstered by the latest data on prices. France, the euro­zone’s second-largest eco­nomy, grew 0.1 per cent between the third and fourth quar­ters.

www.sba.tax

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Cloud Bookkeeping

HS2 cost cuts new routes and add delays.

 Trans­port depart­ment offi­cials have begun work on «Project Sil­ver­light» sug­gest­ing the high­speed rail scheme might face four addi­tional years of delay. The planned High Speed 2 rail line faces fur­ther delays of up to four years and more cuts to the project under plans being drawn up by min­is­ters to rein in its bal­loon­ing costs. The extra delays to the coun­try’s biggest infra­struc­ture project would mean that it would not be com­pleted until as late as 2045 — 12 years after ori­gin­ally planned. «This is a func­tion of infla­tion; we are hav­ing to find huge sav­ings because the cost of everything the depart­ment is already doing will have become so much more expens­ive by then,» said one gov­ern­ment offi­cial. In Octo­ber, the FT repor­ted that the Treas­ury had asked HS2’s man­age­ment team to identify poten­tial cuts or «scope reduc­tions» to the high-speed line. Trans­port depart­ment offi­cials have sub­sequently begun work on Project Sil­ver­light aimed at fi...
4 comments
Read more

Small business will be excluded from fraud law.

  Min­is­ters are plan­ning to exclude small busi­nesses from anti-fraud legis­la­tion by nar­row­ing the scope of a crim­inal offence tar­get­ing com­pan­ies that fail to pre­vent eco­nomic crimes. MPs and anti-cor­rup­tion cam­paign­ers had hoped the gov­ern­ment would seek to amend the eco­nomic crime and cor­por­ate trans­par­ency bill to ensure the new offence covered all com­pan­ies. The plans to limit the scope of the amend­ments will also dis­ap­point those who had hoped the legis­la­tion would remove key hurdles to the pro­sec­u­tion of white-col­lar crime. A new «fail­ure to pre­vent» offence for fraud would bring it in line with exist­ing sim­ilar cor­por­ate offences for bribery and tax eva­sion. At present, pro­sec­utors need only prove that organ­isa­tions lacked «reas­on­able» or «adequate» con­trols to pur­sue the offence in bribery and tax eva­sion cases. «It would be much more sens­ible for the gov­ern­ment to provide strong guid­ance for SMEs on what these pro­ce...
3 comments
Read more

Doubt on CS's collateral.

  Credit Suisse provided an emergency $140mn loan to Greensill Capital based partly on invoices to companies that deny ever doing the business stated on the documents. The Swiss bank provided the loan in October 2020, less than five months before the collapse of Greensill, a supply chain finance firm that counted former British prime minister David Cameron as a senior adviser. Invoices issued by metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Commodities and sold to Greensill formed part of the collateral for the loan, according to documents seen by the Financial Times and people familiar with the transaction. Yet several of the parties named on the invoices have told the FT they did no business with Liberty. GFG has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Credit Suisse’s loan had a clause dictating that the collateral value had to be equal to or greater than the $140mn borrowed. The terms of the debt agreement only allowed invoices on Green-sill’s balance sheet to count towards this tally if t...
2 comments
Read more