Headlines

Finance ministers from the euro currency discussed the impasse in Greece’s talks with creditors on Monday, but no breakthrough emerged on the latest conflict that threatens to derail Greece’s bailout deal: workers’ rights. The International Monetary Fund is insisting on further deregulation of Greece’s labor market, and rejects any reversal of earlier labor reforms, as a condition of rejoining the troubled Greek bailout program as a lender, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Eighteen foreign banks, including Standard Chartered Plc., Barclays Plc. and Deutsche Bank AG, have agreed to restructure loans to the tune of $550 million given to Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL), two people aware of the development said, Livemint reported. The lenders agreed to a moratorium of between three and five years on repayments after meeting JSPL chairperson Naveen Jindal earlier this month, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity. Last year, JSPL failed to meet the repayment schedule for the April-June quarter due to stressed cash flows.

German central bank President Jens Weidmann suggested on Monday that the European Central Bank should slowly start to retreat from its easy-money policies, indicating divisions within the ECB over the timing of an exit, The Wall Street Journal reported. The comments come amid renewed criticism of the ECB in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. A recent jump in eurozone inflation, to 2% last month, has prompted calls from top German politicians and economists for a policy reversal from Frankfurt.

Foreign investors were net sellers of eurozone bonds over 2016 for the first time since the introduction of the single currency, as the European Central Bank continues to purchase the continent’s debt and keep yields low, the Financial Times reported. Overseas bondholders reduced their net holdings of eurozone debt securities by €192bn in 2016, reversing an increase of €30bn the year before, according to data from the ECB. Sovereign bonds comprised the bulk of the sales at €116bn as benchmark yields registered their lows during the summer.

When the European Commission published a “white paper” this month on the future of Europe, something was missing. Two weeks earlier Pierre Moscovici, EU economy commissioner, had told an audience in Athens that the blueprint would include “ambitious ideas” for “deepening of the economic and monetary union” — code for overhauling the system of budget rules and policy co-ordination that underpins the single currency, the Financial Times reported.

Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said growth prospects have improved in the world's second-largest economy, but its monetary policy remains prudent and neutral, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Earlier this week, China published upbeat data showing its economy got off to a strong start to 2017, supported by bank lending, a government infrastructure spree and a long-sought resurgence in private investment.

Italy has abolished voucher payments for workers, which were highly popular with employers, to avoid a bruising referendum championed by the country's main union, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Friday. Payment by vouchers was introduced in 2008 as an experiment for seasonal farm labourers. The flexible and unregulated form of payment was aimed at encouraging bosses to stop hiring workers on an illegal, ad hoc basis, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Deutsche Bank AG has been offering attractive financing terms to help investors and other banks buy soured mortgages, a bid by the German lender to help fulfill terms of its recent $7.2 billion mortgage settlement with the U.S. government, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. The reason: Deutsche can get credit toward the settlement if it helps others buy troubled loans and those parties then provide relief to the borrowers, the people said.

The eurozone’s construction sector suffered its biggest monthly contraction since 2013 in January – the second consecutive month of declines, the Financial Times reported. Output dropped by 2.3 per cent in January from December, and it was 6.2 per cent lower compared to January 2016, according to figures from Eurostat. The biggest monthly drops were recorded in Slovenia (-12.3 per cent), Belgium (-4.6 per cent) and Spain (-3.8 per cent) and could dampen expectations of a strong start to growth in the single currency area in the first quarter of 2017.

There could be a light at the end of the tunnel for European lenders waiting to issue billions in loss-absorbing debt as rulemakers ramp up the pressure to accelerate the requisite legislation. The European Commission endorsed a new form of senior unsecured debt in November 2016 in an attempt to harmonise the increasingly fragmented European bank debt market, the result of diverging national approaches to meeting post-crisis regulation, Reuters reported.