Headlines

South Korea has begun collecting a levy on domestic banks and local branches of foreign banks it introduced in August, hoping to help the economy guard against shocks stemming from rapid capital flows in and out of the country, the Finance Ministry said Sunday. The Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. paid $759,000, making it the first foreign or domestic bank to pay what is called the "macroprudential stability levy" to the Bank of Korea.

Talks on restructuring the €31 billion in promissory notes are well advanced, according to Craig Beaumont of the International Monetary Fund. The head of the IMF’s Ireland team said much consensus existed among his organisation, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the Irish Government on restructuring the notes. An agreement on the €31 billion of promissory notes, which accounts for just under one-fifth of total public debt of €164 billion as of the end of last year, could significantly reduce the risk of the Irish State defaulting on its sovereign obligations.

As automakers prepare to roll out new models this week at the Geneva Auto Show - one of the major events in the automotive calendar - they are being forced to fight for a slice of an ever-shrinking European market stricken with austerity and recession, the Associated Press reported. On top of this, carmakers are also having to confront the uncomfortable fact that a large number of their production lines are lying idle and eating up valuable funds.

Italian yellow pages company Seat Pagine Gialle said on Friday it had won the support of more than 75 percent of its senior creditors and Lighthouse bondholders, paving the way for a debt restructuring deal, Reuters reported. Shares in the Turin-based company had leapt 19.5 percent on Friday, as investors took the view that a deal to avoid bankruptcy protection was in sight. Seat has defaulted twice on its debt obligations in the last few months and postponed several times the deadline to reach a final agreement. The latest deadline is March 7.

Eurozone members delayed approval of more than half of the €130bn bail-out for Greece after demanding that Athens show more proof that it would implement hastily agreed spending cuts and reforms, the Financial Times reported. Finance ministers from the 17-country currency bloc meeting in Brussels signed off on funds to underpin a €206bn restructuring of privately held Greek debt.

Owners of insurance-like contracts designed to protect against potential losses on Greek sovereign debt won't receive payouts, at least for now, even though the country took steps in its restructuring in recent days that could force private creditors to accept losses on the face value of their bonds, a committee of dealers and investors decided. Thursday's decision marks the first time the panel of experts has held a vote on whether compensation is owed to holders of the credit-default swap protection on Greece, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The euro's tough new German-penned economic rulebook will be immediately tested by spiralling budget deficits in the Netherlands and Spain, raising the prospect of swingeing fines on the two countries, it emerged at an EU summit, The Guardian reported. As eurozone leaders finally launched a second, €130bn (£108bn) bailout of Greece, EU chiefs, with the exception of David Cameron and the Czech prime minister, prepared to sign the new rulebook – the fiscal pact – on Friday morning. The rules are the main part of an attempt to get the eurozone's soaring debt levels under control.

Drydocks World LLC plans to present next week the terms to restructure $2.2 billion of debt as the global credit crisis forces Dubai’s state-linked companies to alter terms on loan repayments, Bloomberg reported. Drydocks World, a unit of state-controlled Dubai World, will on March 8 “present the terms of its proposal and the steps required to implement it along with the associated timeline to all its syndicated lenders,” the company said in an e-mailed statement today.

Manufacturers reported further growth in February and, despite a slight slowdown, the sector's recovery is reducing the need for more stimulus from the central bank as the economy is slowly moving out of the danger zone, Reuters reported. Some Bank of England policymakers, including Governor Mervyn King, this week played down the likelihood of another cash boost, and news that the sluggish housing market is gaining a touch of momentum bolstered views that February's 50 billion pound cash injection may have been the last.

Euro zone joblessness rose to a new euro-era high while inflation was largely steady at the start of 2012, data showed today, leaving the European Central Bank to juggle the demands of a slowing economy and only mild pressure on prices, the Irish Times reported. A cold snap in Europe and rising oil prices were probably behind the slight rise in February consumer prices that took inflation for the euro zone to 2.7 per cent, compared to 2.6 per cent in January, figures from the EU's statistics office Eurostat showed.