Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

The OECD Working Group on Bribery has serious concerns regarding Belgium’s limited efforts to comply with the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. The Group considers Belgium not sufficiently compliant with the Convention: Belgium has only fully implemented 5 recommendations out of the 30 Phase 3 recommendations made to Belgium in 2013.

A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by Khaled Sakr, visited Zagreb during February 17–23, 2016. The mission met with Minister of Finance Zdravko Marić, Minister of Economy Tomislav Panenić, Minister of Public Administration Dubravka Jurlina Alibegović, Minister of Labor and Pension Systems Nada Šikić, Minister of Health Dario Nakić, Croatian National Bank Governor Boris Vujčić, other senior officials, and representatives of the civil society as well as the private sector.

The OECD Tuesday agreed a new framework that would allow all interested countries and jurisdictions to join in efforts to update international tax rules for the 21st Century. The proposal for broadening participation in the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project will be presented to G20 Finance Ministers at their next meeting on 26-27 February in Shanghai, China.

My visit to Chad has been extremely fruitful. I wish to thank President Idris Déby Itno and the Chadian authorities for our substantive discussions.

A new report recommending steps to help lift Vietnam to upper-middle-income status in two decades suggests that Vietnam build a more competitive private sector, support smart urbanization, promote innovation, and take advantage of increasing trade opportunities to enact broad structural reforms.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team led by Ms. Mercedes Vera Martin visited Nouakchott from February 8 to 22, 2016 to review recent economic developments and outlook in the context of the annual Article IV Consultation.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission led by Mr. Roberto Garcia –Saltos visited Tegucigalpa during February 15-19 to review economic developments and authorities’ implementation of their Fund-supported program during 2015.

The Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) celebrated an important milestone in its commitment to green finance, with the listing of the 100th green bond admitted on its markets on 18 February 2016.

Growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) in the OECD area slowed markedly to 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2015, down from 0.5% and 0.6% in the previous quarters, according to provisional estimates.