Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is working on a new aid package worth as much as €9.6 billion ($9.6 billion) to help families and businesses through the end of the year without widening the country’s deficit, Bloomberg News reported. The support being devised by the new premier, whose right-wing government was sworn in this week, will show initial continuity with the fiscal prudence of predecessor Mario Draghi before she then probably needs to resort to more borrowing in 2023.

While Greece's economy is growing at nearly twice the euro zone rate this year thanks to a robust rebound in tourism, young people are increasingly being priced out of the property market due to the energy crisis and inflation, soaring rents and a scarce supply of small flats, Reuters reported. Rising rents and unaffordability of housing is a problem across many industrialised economies, but in Greece it is particularly acute as living standards and household wealth have already been crippled by the debt crisis that began in 2009 and the years of austerity that followed.

Makers of metals, chemicals and gasses said on Tuesday that the outlook for the final months of the year had worsened as concerns intensify that a surge in energy and raw material costs will shrink Europe's heavy industry, Reuters reported. French industrial gases company Air Liquide flagged slowing demand from some customers in Europe while Swedish steel maker SSAB said it will cut capacity in the fourth quarter as demand in Europe slows. It already cut construction-related volumes in the quarter to end-September.

On a market that seems to thrive as the courier firms capitalise on the rise of online commerce particularly coming from second-tier cities, independent courier firm Nemo Express entered insolvency at its request on October 21, shortly after one of the shareholders - operating leasing company Capital Fleet Services - pulled out, Profit.ro reported, according to Romania-Insider.com. Capital Fleet is also the largest on a list of some 25 creditors.

Ukraine's external financing needs will be around $3 billion a month through 2023 in a best-case scenario, but could rise as high as $5 billion if Russian bombing becomes "even more dramatic," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said, Reuters reported. The International Monetary Fund is working with Ukrainian authorities to help define and implement the country's macroeconomic policies and what will be required to become a member of the European Union, as well as produce reliable financial projections, Georgieva told a conference in Berlin on Tuesday.

Italy is considering adjusting the way it evaluates the primary dealers responsible for trading its debt in order to incentivise them to trade at tighter bid-ask spreads, its debt management cheif said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Davide Iacovoni, director general of public debt at the economy and finance ministry, said that there were a number of things Italy was doing to improve liquidity in its debt markets, including repo market action and liability management.

Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who warned that Liz Truss’ economic plans for Britain were a “fairy tale,” won the contest to succeed her as prime minister on Monday, taking over the world’s sixth-biggest economy at a time of deep financial and political turbulence, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Sunak will formally enter Downing Street after his only remaining rival for the job, former defense minister Penny Mordaunt, said on Twitter she would drop out of the contest. “Rishi has my full support,” she wrote. Mr.

Fresh economic data points to a slowdown in global growth, as higher prices and interest rates weigh on consumer demand, Europe enters a critical phase of its economic conflict with Russia, and China faces headwinds, the Wall Street Journal reported. With German factories making the biggest output cuts since the early part of the pandemic due to soaring costs, European business activity fell again in October, according to new surveys. Europe is grappling with the fallout from Russia’s decision to throttle energy supplies in response to sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine's economy is expected to shrink by 30% this year, First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on Monday, as Russia's invasion enters its ninth month, Reuters reported. Earlier this month, the economy ministry said the economy had shrunk by an estimated 30% in the first three quarters of this year compared to the same period in 2021. Svyrydenko also told a Ukraine-Germany business conference that inflation and unemployment were both seen at 30% this year. Read more.

The German parliament on Friday cleared the way for the government to provide up to 200 billion euros ($195 billion) in subsidies to households and businesses to ease the strain of high energy prices, a plan that has been greeted with suspicion elsewhere in Europe, the Associated Press reported. Lawmakers agreed to let a government economic stabilization fund borrow the money and approved an exemption from a rule that imposes severe limits on running up new debt.