Headlines

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Friday there had been significant progress with lenders on a bailout review, and that he hoped for a comprehensive deal by April, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Creditors started fresh negotiations with Athens last week on signing off on a new bailout review under the terms of the country's 86 billion euro (74.86 billion pounds) financing facility. The talks have dragged on for months amid disagreement on fiscal targets and whether the International Monetary Fund will come on board.

Li Keqiang’s annual, 42-page “work report” to China’s parliament is packed with obscure details on matters such as mobile roaming and urban utility tunnels. But one of China’s biggest policy initiatives of 2016 — the reimposition of capital controls — went unmentioned in the premier’s address to the National People’s Congress, the Financial Times reported.

The European Central Bank hinted at the beginning of the end of its massive monetary stimulus, but stopped short of a significant move to rein it in, brushing off concerns that its policies are excessive as the eurozone’s €10 trillion ($10.542 trillion) economy picks up speed, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ECB’s decision on Thursday to keep its foot on the gas underscores the divergence between the world’s two most powerful central banks. Federal Reserve officials have indicated recently that the U.S. central bank is ready to raise interest rates again as soon as next week.

Some €700 million worth of non-performing mortgage loans (NPLs) across 1,560 accounts at Permanent TSB are “en route to closure” through a legal process, the bank’s chief executive Jeremy Masding warned yesterday, the Irish Times reported. In addition, about 4,000 mortgage account holders have yet to receive a determination from the bank on their untreated loan arrears. This includes a “hard core” of 1,500 account holders who have refused to engage with the lender.

Singapore owes its existence, and its prosperity, to its place at the heart of intra-Asian trade, The Economist reported. In more than 50 years of independence, the city-state has striven mightily to attract investment from all over the world. Such has been its success, indeed, that others hope to imitate its open, low-tax model. In Britain, for example, there has been talk of the country turning into a “European Singapore” once withdrawal from the EU is complete.

A seasoned economist in Ghana likens his country to a plane perpetually trundling down the runway, never quite taking off. Extend the metaphor along the coast, and Nigeria’s economy, the largest in Africa in dollar terms before the collapse in world oil prices, has been grounded, the Financial Times reported. In the throes of its first recession in 25 years, inflation is soaring, factories closing and the fabled middle class has been retreating to the place from which it only recently re-emerged.

The industrial sector has the highest insolvency risk in 2017, says an analysis of CITR, the Romanian insolvency administration company. Out of industry and constructions sectors, there are already 54 percent, respectively 15 percent of the total fixed assets of the companies with insolvency requests in 2017. At the end of February, 120 companies, each with assets with over EUR 1 million, have already recorded insolvency requests. The number of cumulated of employees of these companies reached 20,000 and their turnovers account over EUR 1.5 billion.

Philip Hammond, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, pledged to make the country “the best place to do business” in his Spring Budget, days ahead of the UK’s formal notification to Brussels of its intention to leave the EU, the Financial Times reported. Basking in better forecasts for the economy and public finances this year, Mr Hammond praised the resilience of the UK since the EU referendum. “Last year, the British economy grew faster than the United States, faster than Japan, faster than France,” he said.

Investigations into Brazil’s embattled construction giant Odebrecht SA are exposing a larger network of graft in Latin America than was already revealed in a massive anticorruption settlement, according to prosecutors in several countries, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since the firm admitted in December to paying nearly $800 million in bribes, authorities across Latin America have launched new investigations that are beginning to ensnare former high-ranking officials and other companies beyond Odebrecht.

For the second day running, China data have economists scratching their heads. Tuesday came a surprise increase in foreign-exchange reserves. Wednesday, it was an unexpected trade deficit—China’s first in three years—which made the rise in Beijing’s currency hoard even harder to account for, The Wall Street Journal reported. Economists say the two don’t fit together easily. Chinese imports in February were up 45% from a year earlier in yuan terms, accelerating from January’s 25% pace, while exports increased just 4.2%.