Finance news

• BCC chief resigns amid row over Brexit comments

  06-03-2016 23:53 via news.yahoo.com
  
  By Kylie MacLellan LONDON (Reuters) - The British Chambers of Commerce said on Sunday its director general, John Longworth, had resigned after calling for Britain to leave the European Union despite the business lobby group taking a neutral stance on an upcoming referendum. In his speech at the BCC's annual conference on Thursday, Longworth said while the group would not be campaigning on either side ahead of a June 23 vote, it was his personal observation that the EU was incapable of meaningful
  
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• RPT-Negative rates encourage Japan firms to issue long-dated bonds

  06-03-2016 22:00
  
  * Corporate issuers seen opting for long-term debt as yields sink
  
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• Russia will cut defense budget by 5 percent in 2016, RIA reports

  06-03-2016 18:25 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Russia’s defense budget will be cut by 5 percent in 2016, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Tatiana Shevtsova said, according to the RIA news agency. Defense spending has been growing as part of a drive by President Vladimir Putin to restore Russia’s military might. The decision to cut shows, however, that even the armed forces are not immune to a slowing Russian economy, which has been hit by falling oil prices and Western sanctions.
  
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• Lenders team may return to Athens in coming week as differences narrow

  06-03-2016 16:53 via news.yahoo.com
  
  A team of international lenders from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund is likely to return to Athens in the coming week to begin to finalize a review of reforms, paving the way for more loan payouts and debt relief talks, officials said. The review of the reforms, started in late January, stalled in early February over details of the politically very difficult pension reform and diverging views between the euro zone and the IMF on how to make the economy and debt sustainable in t
  
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• UPDATE 3-Egypt's central bank holds exceptional $500 mln FX auction

  06-03-2016 16:52
  
  CAIRO, March 6 (Reuters) - Egypt's central kept bank kept the pound stable at 7.7301 pounds against the dollar at an exceptional auction on Sunday for the sale of $500 million to cover imports of...
  
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• German minister calls Trump a threat, Merkel lauds Clinton

  06-03-2016 16:19 via news.yahoo.com
  
  By Michael Nienaber BERLIN (Reuters) - German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has branded leading U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump a threat to peace and prosperity while Chancellor Angela Merkel said it had always been a pleasure to work with Democrat Hillary Clinton. The comments by Gabriel, Germany's vice chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats, are the clearest sign yet that ruling politicians in Europe are increasingly worried about the outcome of the U.S. presidenti
  
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• Greek PM blasts IMF 'stalling tactics'

  06-03-2016 14:06 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday said the IMF was employing "stalling tactics" and "arbitrary" estimates to hold up a reforms review crucial to the country's economic recovery. "The review will be completed soon in spite of the IMF's stalling tactics," Tsipras told his party's central committee. "For the first time, there is substantial convergence... between the Greek side and European institutions," he said.
  
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• REFILE-Carry trades at heart of China capital outflows -BIS

  06-03-2016 13:24
  
  LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - Heavy outflows of capital from China have mainly been a result of the unwinding of carry trades aimed at benefiting from rising interest rates and an appreciating yuan,...
  
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• Delegate tells China parliament stock crisis 'destroying middle class'

  06-03-2016 12:37 via news.yahoo.com
  
  A Shanghai representative to the National People's Congress (NPC) on Sunday lambasted China's market regulators for igniting a stock crisis that is "destroying the Chinese middle class", a rare rebuke for authorities during their biggest annual event. "The ten years of stock market development since 2007 is a decade of tears for Chinese investors," Fan Yun, a Shanghai businesswoman said during an open session at NPC in Beijing. Fan, who has a reputation for being outspoken, laid into Chinese bro
  
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• China says economy will 'absolutely not' experience hard landing

  06-03-2016 12:35 via news.yahoo.com
  
  China's economy isn't headed for a hard landing and isn't dragging on the global economy, China's top economic planner said on Sunday, but uncertainty and instability in the global economy do pose a risk to the country's growth. China on Saturday acknowledged it faced tough battle to keep world's No.2 economy growing by at least 6.5 percent over the next five years while pushing hard to create more jobs and restructuring state-owned enterprises. The comments, as Beijing kicked off its 12-day ann
  
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• Faith in central banks' healing powers faltering: BIS

  06-03-2016 12:18 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Financial markets' shaky start to the year shows they are losing faith in the "healing powers" of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said on Sunday while voicing concerns over sub-zero interest rates and emerging economies. The Swiss-based organization, which fosters cooperation between central banks in the pursuit of monetary and financial stability, said that recent worries over China's economy, oil and commodity prices and some European banks had come as fundamental s
  
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• China warns Hong Kong not to politicize issues

  06-03-2016 11:44 via news.yahoo.com
  
  By James Pomfret BEIJING (Reuters) - China's third-ranked Communist Party leader Zhang Dejiang said Hong Kong shouldn't "politicize everything" and should instead focus on integrating its economy with China's, according to members of China's parliament who met with him on Sunday. A day after Premier Li Keqiang pledged greater economic support for Hong Kong at the opening of annual parliamentary sessions in Beijing, Zhang said that while a recent riot in Hong Kong was a concern, it was one the ci
  
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• China economic powerhouse Guangdong sees GDP growth of 7-7.5 percent in 2016

  06-03-2016 11:25 via news.yahoo.com
  
  China's southern Guangdong province expects economic growth of between 7-7.5 percent in 2016, said Hu Chunhua, the Communist Party boss of the economic and export powerhouse. "Guangdong is like the rest of the country in facing great slowdown pressures," said Hu, following a meeting with the province's delegates in Beijing during the country's annual parliamentary session. "The influence of the global economy is bigger (for Guangdong) than in other places," Hu said, pointing out that the provinc
  
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• Egypt central bank auction to cover imports of strategic goods

  06-03-2016 11:19 via news.yahoo.com
  
  A $500 million auction by Egypt's central bank on Sunday will be to cover imports of strategic goods, a central bank official told Reuters. The central bank said it would hold the exceptional auction at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT), pumping more foreign exchange into an economy that has been starved of dollars. Egypt's pound has been depreciating rapidly on the black market over the past week, piling pressure on the central bank to adjust the official rate of 7.72 pounds to the dollar.
  
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• Bankers jostle to be junior as UK accountability rules kick in

  06-03-2016 10:00
  
  LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - New rules to hold bosses responsible for wrongdoing at British banks is deterring some bankers from taking on senior management roles and even prompting big-hitters to...
  
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• China 'absolutely' will not have hard landing: official

  06-03-2016 09:05 via news.yahoo.com
  
  China's economy "absolutely will not" suffer a hard landing, the chief of its top planning body said on Sunday, as Beijing's leaders try to reassure global investors about the world's second-largest economy. Xu Shaoshi, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, made the comments to reporters on the second day of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC), the Communist-controlled legislature. "China's economy absolutely will not have a hard landing," Xu said.
  
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• German vice chancellor says Trump poses threat to peace and prosperity

  06-03-2016 07:14 via news.yahoo.com
  
  German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has criticized leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a right-wing populist whose political views pose a threat to peace and prosperity. The comments by Gabriel, economy minister and leader of the Social Democrats, are the clearest sign yet that ruling politicians in Europe are increasingly worried about the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections. "Whether Donald Trump, Marine le Pen or Geert Wilders - all these right-wing populists ar
  
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• RPT-Oil's squeeze spreads from Gulf states to banks

  06-03-2016 07:00
  
  DUBAI/DOHA, March 3 (Reuters) - Low oil prices are forcing Gulf states to borrow to prop up their economies and are now taking their toll on the region's banks too, complicating their efforts to...
  
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• China's economy will 'absolutely not' experience hard landing: state planner

  06-03-2016 06:55 via news.yahoo.com
  
  China's economy isn't headed for a hard landing and isn't dragging on the global economy, China's top economic planner said on Sunday, but uncertainty and instability in the global economy do pose a risk to the country's growth. China on Saturday acknowledged it faced tough challenges but said it would keep its economy expanding at least 6.5 percent on average over the next five years while pushing hard to create more jobs and restructure state-owned enterprises. "China will absolutely not exper
  
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• China's top economic planner: 'hard landing' impossible

  06-03-2016 06:41 via news.yahoo.com
  
  BEIJING (AP) — China's top economic planning official on Sunday said it is impossible that the Chinese economy would have a "hard landing" — or a sharp slowdown after a period of robust growth — and offered assurances that it would continue to contribute to global growth, not hinder it.
  
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• Why is eurozone inflation so persistently low?

  06-03-2016 06:10 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Despite a raft of different measures by the European Central Bank to kickstart sluggish consumer prices in the eurozone, inflation in the single currency bloc turned negative in February for the first time in five months. The ECB estimates that consumer prices need to rise at an annual rate of close to but just below 2.0 percent to foster healthy economic growth. Oil prices have been falling sharply for the past two years, weighed down by over-abundant global supply.
  
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• Low oil prices put strains on Gulf currency pegs

  06-03-2016 06:05 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Weak oil prices pose a threat to Gulf Arab states' currency pegs against the dollar, but the energy-rich region is unlikely to abandon the policy yet, analysts say. Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all keep the values of their currencies fixed against the greenback, while Kuwait has a link to a basket of currencies including the dollar. The slide in oil prices has battered the economies of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states at a time when an impro
  
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• Flexisecurity: Dream for firms, nightmare for short-term workers

  06-03-2016 05:56 via news.yahoo.com
  
  In 2009 the Nissan factory in Barcelona in northeastern Spain seemed condemned to close. "We had to react, become competitive and flexible," the vice president of Nissan in Spain, Frank Torres, told AFP. Similar measures were adopted in the entire auto sector, which accounts for ten percent of Spain's economic output.
  
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• Global uncertainty, instability pose risk to China's economic growth: NDRC

  06-03-2016 04:40 via news.yahoo.com
  
  BEIJING (Reuters) - The global economy remains uncertain and unstable, posing a risk to China's economic growth, the country's top economic planner said on Sunday.
  
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• China to launch mixed ownership pilot programs in oil, gas, rail sectors

  06-03-2016 04:40 via news.yahoo.com
  
  China plans to launch several mixed ownership pilot programs in the oil, natural gas and rail sectors as it deepens reforms of state-owned enterprises, the country's top economic planner said on Sunday. As China restructures its state-owned companies, it will also moderately increase investment in infrastructure and public services, Xu Shaoshi, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told reporters at a briefing in Beijing. In September last year, China issued guidance on
  
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• China will absolutely not have a hard economic landing: state planner chairman

  06-03-2016 04:38 via news.yahoo.com
  
  China is not headed for a hard economic landing, and it is not dragging on the global economy, the country's top economic planner said on Sunday. "China will absolutely not experience a hard landing," Xu Shaoshi, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told reporters at a briefing in Beijing. China aims to keep its economy growing by at least 6.5 percent over the next five years while pushing hard to create more jobs and restructure inefficient state-owned enterprises, but
  
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• China says cuts in overcapacity won't cause massive layoffs

  06-03-2016 04:04 via news.yahoo.com
  
  (Reuters) - China's plans to reduce industrial overcapacity are unlikely to result in large-scale layoffs, the country's top economic planner said on Sunday. Xu Shaoshi, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told reporters at a briefing that economic growth will create more jobs and help offset the impact of capacity cuts. China aims to keep its economy growing by at least 6.5 percent over the next five years while pushing hard to create more jobs and restructure ineffic
  
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• UPDATE 3-U.S. Commerce Dept to place restrictions on China's ZTE

  06-03-2016 00:22
  
  LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department is set to place export restrictions on Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE Corp for allegedly violating U.S. export controls on Iran,...
  
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