Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

The World Bank Group, the Ministry of Agriculture Development through its Project for Agriculture Commercialization and Trade (PACT), and implementing partner Practical Action Consulting and Kathmandu University School Of Management, with support from the governments of Finland, Norway, and Sweden, on April 28th, launched the Nepal Agribusiness Innovation Center, a new business hub designed to increase the competitiveness and growth of local agro-processing companies.

Minister Kenneth O. Matambo, Chairman of the African Caucus, and Ms. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), co-chaired the African Consultative Group meeting at the IMF Headquarters, on April 23th. They issued the following statement after the conclusion of the Group’s meeting in Washington.

Key products and services, like phones, e-book readers, operating systems and payment terminals, will have to be made more accessible to people with disabilities, under draft EU rules amended in committee on Tuesday.

The World Bank Group launched XL Africa, a five-month business acceleration program designed to support the 20 most promising digital start-ups from Sub-Saharan Africa. Start-ups will receive mentoring from global and local experts, learn through a tailor-made curriculum, increase their regional visibility, and get access to potential corporate partners and investors.

An EU scheme to mobilise €44 billion in private sector investment in Africa and the EU’s neighbourhood should focus on the poor, said committee MEPs on Monday.

The global economic recovery is gaining momentum, commodity prices have firmed up, and deflation risks are receding. While the outlook is improving, growth is still modest and subject to heightened political and policy uncertainties. Crisis legacies, high debt levels, weak productivity growth, and demographic trends remain challenging headwinds in advanced economies; while domestic imbalances, sharper-than-expected financial tightening, and negative spillovers from global uncertainty pose challenges for some emerging market and developing countries.

The IMF welcomes Germany’s commitment to strengthening its collaboration with the IMF on capacity development. Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s Federal Minister of Finance and Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on April 21, signed a Letter of Understanding whereby the German Ministry of Finance will provide €15 million in support of the IMF’s capacity development activities across Africa in the context of the G-20 Compact with Africa.

Poland’s economic growth is expected to accelerate to 3.3 percent in 2017, compared to 2.8 percent in 2016, supported by stronger investment and consumption, according to forecasts published by the World Bank on Thursday. Growth is also expected to remain broadly stable at 3.2 percent in both 2018 and 2019.

Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is rebounding in 2017 after registering the worst decline in more than two decades in 2016, according to the new Africa’s Pulse, a bi-annual analysis of the state of African economies conducted by the World Bank.

In a positive development, today more than ever before, Latin American and Caribbean countries are pursuing counter-cyclical fiscal policies - spending more in bad times and saving in good times, according to a new World Bank semiannual report for the region.