An average of 30 companies went to the wall and an estimated 1,075 jobs were lost every week during 2010, according to figures released yesterday, the Irish Times reported. Information compiled by corporate restructuring specialists Kavanagh Fennell, publishers of the Insolvency Journal, show that more than 1,500 firms went into liquidation, receivership or examinership in the Republic because they were unable to pay debts.

China supports Spain's economic reforms and will continue buying Spanish government debt, Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang wrote in a newspaper editorial, the latest sign of China's growing role in protecting the stability of the European Union, its largest export market, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spain has faced increasing difficulties in financing a yawning budget deficit after Greece's financial meltdown in early 2010 sparked concerns about the problems of other fiscally frail euro-zone countries.

Poland’s central bank may start increasing interest rates in January as the zloty has lost its power to keep inflation in check, said Adam Glapinski, a member of the Monetary Policy Council, Bloomberg News reported today. The zloty weakened 2.3 percent against the euro in the six weeks through Dec. 22, when the policy makers left the central bank’s benchmark 7-day rate unchanged for the 18th month.

The mergers-and-acquisitions market in Europe continued its slow recovery in the fourth quarter, and most investment bankers predict a continued improvement in 2011 despite persistent concerns over Europe's financial health, the Wall Street Journal reported today. There were $228 billion of takeover deals with a European target announced in the quarter through Dec. 30, up 11 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to Dealogic. However, the volume of deals in the fourth quarter was 44 percent lower than in the same period of 2007, the year the last M&A boom peaked.

The target date for the completion of Air Malta’s restructuring plan has been extended to the end of the month as the “sensitivity” of the task made it more difficult to meet the early January deadline, Timesofmalta.com reported. The government had set itself the ambitious target of having the plan in place by early January for submission to the European Commission, but this has now been pushed back by a few weeks. Despite this, the government is still well ahead of its EU deadline for the plan and there will be ample time to discuss the reform programme with the European Commission.

Mortgage lenders have warned that an imminent crackdown by the FSA on lending practices could keep the market in the “doldrums” for the foreseeable future and even jeopardise the economic recovery, the Financial Times reported. Under proposals from the City watchdog, lenders will have to do more to ensure borrowers can afford their mortgages. That could mean a curtailing of interest-only products, self-certified mortgages and products of longer than 25 years. Lord Turner, chairman of the FSA, recently claimed the changes would only marginally affect most would-be borrowers.

The French government thinks it knows the solution to its slow growth and loss of industry: Be more German, The Wall Street Journal reported. "I admire the German model," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said recently. "We need to learn from some aspects." The government is now carrying out a detailed comparison of its tax system with that of Germany, which has lower corporate and payroll taxes than France. Germany traditionally has grown more from investment and exports, which are now booming thanks to demand from China, and it generally has run lower budget deficits than France.

One of Italy's biggest unions yesterday announced a strike next month to protest against an agreement reached between Fiat SpA and rival unions to build Alfa Romeo and Jeep vehicles at a key plant, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The metalworkers' union, Fiom, took part in the talks last week but refused to sign the agreement on the terms of the future labor contract for the plant because it rejected some of these terms demanded by Fiat.

Austrian technology and engineering group A-TEC struck a deal with creditors yesterday to repay 47 percent of its debts and agreed to find an outside investor by June 30 as a way to avoid bankruptcy, Reuters reported yesterday. The insolvent industrial conglomerate with more than 11,000 employees was under pressure to find a solution with creditors by a Jan. 20 deadline. Georg Kantner of the Austrian creditor's association KSV said that the deal had bought time to find an investor and provided a realistic chance for a turnaround.

Creditors of A-Tec Industries AG, the insolvent Austrian engineering group, would welcome majority shareholder and Chief Executive Mirko Kovats stepping down, Austrian state broadcaster ORF quoted the spokesman of A-Tec’s creditor committee as saying, Bloomberg News reported today. Kovats’ resignation as CEO “would be beneficial for building trust and it would be very, very acceptable for creditors,” Hans-Georg Kantner of credit protection association KSV Kreditschutzverband von 1870 told ORF radio in an interview.