Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

On October 26, 2020, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the sixth and final review of Niger’s economic and financial program supported under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) framework. The completion of the review enables the disbursement of SDR 14.1 million (about US$19.9 million), bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to SDR 118.44 million (about US$167.86 million).

Major infrastructure projects like this dam on the Nura River in Kazakhstan often require foreign direct investment.

Women at work in a garment factory in Hai Phong, Viet Nam.

Lao PDR has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty over the past 25 years, with the proportion of the population living in poverty falling by more than half, from 46 percent in 1993 to 18 percent in 2019. The finding comes from two reports just released by the Lao Statistics Bureau and the World Bank. But the good news comes with a caveat: some of the gains made against poverty could be erased by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Lao economy.

Asian markets rose Wednesday with renewed hopes that the Trump administration and House Democrats were close to a deal on a new coronavirus relief measure.

Trade and integration — within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and with the rest of the world — will be critical to lowering poverty, empowering the poor, and igniting economic growth in the post-COVID era, according to the World Bank’s latest regional economic update.

An estimated 1 in 6 children – or 356 million globally – lived in extreme poverty before the pandemic, and this is set to worsen significantly, according to a new World Bank Group-UNICEF analysis released on October 20.

The United Kingdom faces major challenges from the COVID-19 crisis and leaving the EU Single Market. Ramping up investment in the digital economy, the service sector, green infrastructure and adult skills would strengthen the recovery and help to boost productivity and environmental sustainability for the long term, according to a new OECD report.

(1) The chart provides a more comparable view of movements in US employment statistics with movements in most other OECD countries, where furloughed workers are included in official employment statistics. It should however not be interpreted as alternative official statistics for the United States.
In this chart, the number of employed covers age group from 16 to 64, while the number of unemployed on temporary lay-off covers age group 16 and over.
(2) US Current Population Survey data

A cargo ship docked at the port of Salvador in Brazil.