Headlines

The young urban Chinese who have entered the workforce over the past decade grew up amid plenty, and their views about saving and spending bear little resemblance to those of their parents. Their willingness to borrow for today and worry about repayment tomorrow is beginning to reshape China’s debt dynamics, the Financial Times reported in an analysis. Of the three kinds of debt – government, corporate and household – the latter is barely on the radar as a risk in China. Household debt is about Rmb15tn ($2.5tn), or a third of gross domestic product, according to RBS.

Five years after a huge property crash devastated the Irish economy, prices are finally stabilising, but a booming urban market where supply is scarce and competition fierce is raising concerns about a new bubble in the capital, Reuters reported. House prices quadrupled on a decade of easy credit during the boom years that earned Ireland the sobriquet Celtic Tiger, then fell by more than half from 2007, leading the country into an EU/IMF bailout, a costly bank rescue and leaving almost one in five homeowners behind on their mortgage payments.

Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney, in his debut speech on Wednesday, announced new measures to boost lending in the U.K. and said the central bank is ready to step in with fresh stimulus if the country's economic recovery falters, The Wall Street Journal reported. Once again, however, his message seems to have fallen on deaf ears: U.K. government bonds fell and traders stuck to bets that the Bank of England won't be able to keep its pledge to hold interest rates at a historic low until 2016. Mr.

Portugal is clearly hitting its export stride, a step that economists view important not only in a Portuguese rebound but in the revival of other parts of Europe. Small businesses cannot on their own mend Portugal’s long-suffering economy. But as many of the country’s businesses have accepted that true growth must occur beyond the country’s borders, the economy is beginning to improve, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Last June, the European Commission announced its about-face on bank restructuring. The money for recapitalising distressed banks would now come primarily from creditors, not European taxpayers, with a pecking order to specify which lenders would be repaid first. All of this is welcome, at least in principle. In practice, however, the scheme leaves much to be desired, The Guardian reported in a commentary. The problem is that a very long list of exceptions reduces the recoverable assets to such an extent that in many cases it will still be impossible to make do without public money.

The French government has unveiled a much-anticipated reform of its deficit-hit pension system, raising the level and duration of contributions but avoiding some of the measures demanded by the EU and others seeking a more radical overhaul, the Financial Times reported. Anxious to avoid an outbreak of social conflict that accompanied previous reform efforts, the government stuck to a promise by President François Hollande not to raise the prevailing minimum retirement age of 62, as many other European countries have done, and as Brussels recommended.

The Dutch government reached a deal on an austerity package for 2014 in a bid to meet European Union budget requirements despite fierce resistance to more belt-tightening at home and concerns that it could further harm the already struggling economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The coalition government struck a deal on €6 billion ($8 billion) in tax increases and spending cuts, Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Tuesday. "I'm satisfied that we have already reached a deal now," he said. Details will be given Sept.

Ireland’s 7,400 pubs have combined debts of more than €2 billion and are continuing to feel the pinch from the recession, according to a report on the sector by AIB in conjunction with the Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) and the Vintner’s Federation of Ireland (VFI), the Irish Times reported. That equates to €270,000 per pub and excludes lending for other purposes that might be secured on a bar. According to the report, 53 per cent of respondents said they had a good relationship with their bank while 18 per cent said it was “poor”.

Don't expect the Bank of Japan to come to the rescue if the sales-tax tussle triggers financial-market turmoil, people familiar with the bank's thinking say, The Wall Street Journal reported. Debate over the plan to double the sales tax in two stages starting in April has heated up over the past six weeks. Some advisers to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have called for him to postpone or moderate the increase, arguing that a higher tax burden would damp consumer spending and threaten economic recovery.

Billabong International Ltd. said its 40-year-old surf brand was worthless after the company’s losses tripled amid store closures, firings and a breach of debt terms. The stock fell the most in almost three weeks, Bloomberg reported. Founded by Gordon Merchant in 1973, Billabong helped sell Australian surfing culture worldwide and rose to a market value of A$3.84 billion ($3.45 billion) at its peak in 2007. Earnings have plummeted in the last two years as competitors including Abercrombie & Fitch Co.