Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

Kazakhstan urgently needs to adopt a fiscal consolidation strategy and refocus its macro-fiscal policy to promote more diversified growth and high-quality job creation, says the World Bank in its Kazakhstan Public Finance Review. The Review aims to help the authorities identify key areas for improvement of Kazakhstan’s fiscal policy framework to ensure fiscal sustainability in the medium-term and support economic transformation in the long-run.

On 7 December 2017 the Council reached a preliminary agreement with the European Parliament on a new multiannual management plan for demersal fish stocks in the North Sea. Demersal fish stocks are species that live and feed near the bottom of seas.

● Higher tariffs against dumped or subsidised imports

● Shorter and more transparent investigations, helpdesk for SMEs, trade unions involved

● Social and environmental dumping to be taken into account

The EU could protect itself better against unfairly cheap imports and combat environmental or social dumping more effectively, under a draft law agreed on Tuesday.

Higher tariffs can be imposed on dumped or subsidised imports to better protect EU jobs and businesses, under an informal agreement struck by Parliament’s negotiating team and EU ministers in Brussels on Tuesday evening.

On December 6, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the First Review of Georgia’s performance under the three-year extended arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) on a lapse of time basis.

On November 10, 2017, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) discussed the IMF’s latest Financial System Stability Assessment (FSSA) of the People’s Republic of China.

Weak productivity growth is a major problem afflicting most societies. It curbs growth in incomes and endangers the sustainability of social security systems. An important, but often ignored, source of the productivity slowdown is the increasing prevalence of weakly productive firms and, among them, “zombie firms” – in essence firms that would typically exit or be forced to restructure in a competitive market.

On December 6, 2017, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the second review of Madagascar’s program supported by the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). The decision was taken without a Board meeting [1] and enables the disbursement of SDR 31.428 million (about US$44.5 million), bringing total disbursements under the ECF arrangement that was approved in July 27, 2016 to SDR 124.834 million (approximately US$174.1 million).

Zambia's economy is continuing to recover, but its economic growth rate is expected to improve only modestly this year—to 3.8% in 2017 from 3.6% in 2016—according to an Economic Brief released by the World Bank on December 7. The brief says that, despite a bumper harvest, improved electricity generation, and an easing of monetary policy, the country's economic recovery has remained subdued because of weak performances in the service, mining, and construction sectors.

Economic activity in Kenya is likely to have declined to its weakest level in five years, says the World Bank’s Kenya Economic Update released in Nairobi, on December 6. GDP growth is estimated to drop to 4.9% in 2017, a 0.6 percentage point dip from the earlier forecast of 5.5% growth.

The modest cyclical expansion of economic activity in 2017 has ended a two-year recession, but economic growth is expected to remain weak, says the World Bank Economic Update on Belarus.