Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Monday completed the third review under the Extended Fund Facility arrangement (EFF) with Seychelles. The completion of the review enables a disbursement of SDR 1.635 million (about US$2.3 million), bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to SDR 6.540 million (about US$9.1 million). The Executive Board’s decision was taken without a meeting.

Egypt and the World Bank signed on Saturday US$1 billion in a development policy finance operation for Egypt to support the Government’s economic reforms program across key economic areas.

On December 18, 2015, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the fifth review of Mozambique’s economic performance under the program supported by the Policy Support Instrument (PSI).

The World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors approved on Friday a US$5 million grant focused on job creation in Palestine. The Finance for Jobs project aims at catalyzing private investment in high potential sectors for job creation.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on December 18, 2015 completed the ninth review of Pakistan’s economic performance under a 36-month program supported by an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement. The Executive Board’s decision enables the immediate disbursement of an amount equivalent to SDR 360 million (about US$498.1 million), bringing total disbursements to SDR 3.6 billion (about US$ 4.98 billion).

The Bank of Greece has decided to put the small cooperative bank (with less than 0.1% market share in Greece) into resolution because it had a capital shortfall and did not succeed in raising new capital from private investors. Under the resolution plan, the existing entity will be put into liquidation, including all its activities except deposits. All deposits of Cooperative Bank of Peloponnese will be transferred to National Bank of Greece (NBG), which acquired at market value the deposits in a bidding process.

Portugal has endeavoured to maintain its foreign aid programme since the economic crisis, but its aid budget has been hit hard and a plan is needed to avoid a further decline and get back on a path towards internationally agreed targets, according to an OECD Review.

On December 7, 2015, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded a review of program design and outcomes of Fund-supported programs undertaken during and following the global financial crisis. The discussion was informed by a staff paper.

A US$1.2 billion loan will support Iraq in strengthening fiscal stabilization and improving efficiency in the energy sector to help counter the effects of the drop in oil prices and rising security costs.

Early Estimates of Quarterly Unit Labour Costs

Seasonally adjusted data, Total economy