Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

The government of Bangladesh signed a $130 million additional financing agreement with the World Bank to scale up support for the recently licensed and new economic zones to attract foreign and domestic investment as well as to create more jobs in the manufacturing sector, on June 19.

At the request of the government of Benin, a team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by Christine Dieterich, Mission Chief for Benin, visited Cotonou from June 6 to 18, to start discussions with the authorities on a possible three-year economic program supported by the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement.

European Commission is firmly delivering on President Juncker's top priority of creating jobs and boosting growth in the European Union, by unveiling a list of 195 transport projects that will receive €6.7 billion of funding under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). This investment is expected to unlock additional public and private co-financing for a combined amount of €9.6 billion. The selected projects will notably contribute to the digitalisation and decarbonisation of transport, in line with the broader political agenda of this Commission. The Member States eligible for the Cohesion Fund[1] received almost 85% of the funding, which will help bridging the infrastructure disparities across the EU.

The Ministry of Labor and Pension System of the Republic of Croatia and the World Bank organized a conference “Saving for Retirement: the Challenge of Designing Sustainable Retirement Savings Systems” on June 17, to share knowledge and experiences among European countries on different options of setting up sustainable pension savings systems.

Early Estimates of Quarterly Unit Labour Costs
Seasonally adjusted data, Total economy

The World Bank on 16 Juneapproved $360 million to help Bangladesh improve the navigability and year-round safe transport for passengers and cargo along Bangladesh’s busiest waterways.

Regional disparities in household disposable income

On June 10, 2016, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with the Republic of Latvia.

Greater investments in workers’ skills and education, coupled with flexible labor regulations, are needed to encourage firms to generate more jobs that offer better pay and social protection.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its development partners launched new phases of the Managing Natural Resource Wealth (MNRW-TF) and the Revenue Mobilization (RM-TF) trust funds during the annual steering committee meetings held in Washington from June 14–15, 2016. Subject to contributions from development partners, the MNRW-TF and RM-TF are expected to provide about US$30 million and US$60 million, respectively, over six years for technical assistance and training to help low- and lower middle-income countries strengthen tax capacity and mobilize natural resource wealth.