Headlines

The European Commission approved Portugal’s 2016 draft budget yesterday after the new Socialist government promised to hike indirect taxes to meet EU budget rules while also easing austerity to keep its leftist allies happy, the Irish Times reported. The decision by the commission will come as a relief to Portugal’s government, which was able to maintain most of its initial budget promises, such as hiking civil servants’ wages and raising the minimum wage, but had to lower its economic growth outlook.

Debt judgments registered against businesses in Ireland fell by 8 per cent in 2015, the fourth consecutive year in which there has been a decline, the Irish Times reported. New figures compiled by the non-profit organisation Registry Trust shows there were 1,062 judgments against Irish businesses last year with the number of judgments against incorporated firms falling 17 per cent to 578. However, the latest figures show a 7 per cent rise in judgments against unincorporated businesses to 484.

The surge in lending to emerging markets that helped fuel their own — and much of the world's — growth over the past 15 years has come to a halt, and may now give way to a "vicious circle" of deleveraging, financial market turmoil and a global economic downturn, the Bank for International Settlements has warned, CNBC reported on a Financial Times story.

Portugal’s new Socialist government faces an embarrassing rejection of its first “anti-austerity” budget by the European Commission on Friday as eleventh-hour talks failed to break a stalemate over additional cuts needed to bring Lisbon in line with EU deficit rules, the Financial Times reported. Portuguese officials expressed confidence they would overcome objections from the commission, which last week warned Lisbon it risked “serious non-compliance” with the bloc’s fiscal rules.

The sole advocate for higher borrowing costs at the Bank of England dropped his call for an interest-rate rise, the latest sign the U.K. central bank is unlikely to follow the Federal Reserve and raise interest rates soon, The Wall Street Journal reported. Ian McCafferty, one of four members of the BOE’s nine-person rate-setting panel drawn from outside the central bank’s ranks, in February ended a five-month push to lift the BOE’s benchmark rate from a record low of 0.5%, where it has been held since early 2009. For Mr.

Azerbaijan has called for help from the International Monetary Fund. Nigeria is turning to the World Bank. Russia and Saudi Arabia are slashing public spending and considering sales of state assets. In Venezuela, where the collapse in oil prices has been even more devastating for the economy, the authorities appear paralysed. With President Nicolás Maduro locked in a power struggle with the opposition-led legislature, the best hope for Venezuelans may be for the country’s external creditors to step in and force a resolution — sooner rather than later, the Financial Times reported.

Russian coal and steel producer Mechel has reached debt restructuring agreements with its major creditors after two years of negotiations on a debt pile it said had threatened the company's survival, Reuters reported. The mining company controlled by businessman Igor Zyuzin borrowed heavily before Russia's economic crisis and has struggled to keep up repayments as demand for its products weakened alongside tumbling coal and steel prices.

Japanese industrial conglomerate Toshiba Corp expects a bigger full-year loss than previously anticipated, amid mounting restructuring costs after a $1.3 billion accounting scandal, Reuters reported. Toshiba said on Thursday it now expected a net loss of 710 billion yen ($6 billion) compared with a previously expected loss of 550 billion yen. Chief Executive Masashi Muromachi told a press conference that Toshiba had lowered its expectations to fully reflect possible downside risks to its business.

The UK has not abandoned its battle against an EU cap on bankers’ bonuses, including it in a list of regulations it says do not work, the Irish Times reported. The Bank of England included the bonus cap in its recent response to an EU review of rules put in place since the financial crisis. Leading the review is Lord Hill, the bloc’s commissioner for financial services, who is also a British Conservative.

Millions of pounds of provisions, stuffed into three-dozen 747 cargo planes, arrived here from countries around the world in recent months to service Venezuela’s crippled economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. But instead of food and medicine, the planes carried another resource that often runs scarce here: bills of Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar.