Headlines

In a related story, the Irish Times reported that Ukraine’s economy exited 1 1/2 years of recession last quarter, reaching a milestone toward what officials predict will be a drawn-out recovery. Gross domestic product rose a preliminary 0.7 per cent in July-September from the previous quarter, the State Statistics Office said Monday, buoyed by a modest industrial revival and relative peace in the nation’s east. The annual decline eased to 7 per cent from 14.6 per cent in the second quarter and as high as 17.2 per cent in the first.

Japan, more than many other developed countries, needs everything to go right for its economy to grow, the International New York Times reported. Its population and work force are shrinking. Once-big industries like consumer electronics are retrenching under pressure from lower-cost rivals. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won power three years ago on a promise to accelerate Japan’s economic metabolism, but despite some notable successes — joblessness is low and many large companies are earning record profits — a broad increase in growth and incomes remains elusive.

Rock stars helped convince the international community to write off more than $100 billion of African government borrowings a decade ago. Now the big debts are back, and it’s getting tougher for countries to pay them off, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mozambique was one of the biggest beneficiaries of debt forgiveness, with its debt slashed from 86% of gross domestic product in 2005 to 9% the next year. The country has built it back up since then to 61% of GDP. Ghana’s debt was 82% of GDP in 2005 just before the international community forgave about half of it.

There were almost seven insolvencies - and two bankruptcies - a day in Northern Ireland between July and September this year, it can be revealed today. And almost a third of all individual insolvencies ended in bankruptcy in the third quarter of 2015. The new figures, obtained by the Belfast Telegraph, actually show a decrease in the number of people and businesses going to the wall from the worst days of the recession, but shine a light on the sluggish rate of Northern Ireland's economic recovery.

Capital flowed into China last month for the first time since an unexpected currency devaluation in August shook investor confidence in the economy, easing fears over financial stability following an unprecedented bout of outflows, the Financial Times reported. Capital has exited China at a record pace this year as an economic slowdown pushed Chinese gross domestic product growth to its slowest pace in six years.

The Financial Stability Board set out a new bank capital regime designed to end the problem of too-big-to-fail banks this week. But market participants were unanimous in saying that national frameworks would be key in determining how much Total Loss Absorbing Capacity (TLAC) debt will need to be raised and where it will price. The much-anticipated term-sheet laid out the reforms that will see the world's biggest lenders raise the equivalent of 18% of their risk-weighted assets in so-called TLAC debt by 2022.

In recent years, other European countries have accused Ireland of acting like an unfair low-tax haven. The European Commission, for example, is investigating whether Ireland gave Apple a preferential tax deal that broke the region’s tough state-aid rules, the International New York Times reported. While lawmakers and the company have repeatedly denied wrongdoing, the country is already phasing out the most controversial loopholes. Ireland has since turned to a new inducement: a low tax rate on revenue generated from patents and other intellectual property held in Ireland.

Japan has slid back into recession for the fifth time in seven years amid uncertainty about the state of the global economy, putting policymakers under growing pressure to deploy new stimulus measures to support a fragile recovery, The Guardian reported. The world’s third-largest economy shrank an annualised 0.8% in July-September, more than a market forecast for a 0.2% contraction, government data showed on Monday. That followed a revised 0.7% contraction in the previous quarter, fulfilling the technical definition of a recession which is two back-to-back quarterly contractions.

Coking coal producer JSW expects to reach an agreement with bondholders on a debt restructuring, the company's deputy head said on Friday, three days ahead of a deadline in the negotiations. State-controlled JSW is struggling to cope with record low coal prices and high mining costs and has had to cut costs. "Taking into account the talks up to now, both sides aim at an agreement and we assume that the agreement will be reached," Tomasz Gawlik told reporters at a news conference on the company's third-quarter results. He declined to give further details.

Davy, Ireland’s largest securities firm, is poised to hand employees about €40 million as it repays loans linked to its 2006 management-led buyout, according to people with knowledge of the matter, the Irish Times reported. The repayment is 1.8 times what workers lent the company to help finance its leveraged buyout from Bank of Ireland, including interest, which accrued at 6 per cent a year, said the people, who declined to be identified because the matter is private. The business was valued at €350 million in the buyout.