Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

Iceland on Friday repaid, ahead of schedule, all of its remaining obligations to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), amounting to SDR 236.9 million (about US$334 million).

G20 finance ministers endorsed the final package of measures for a comprehensive, coherent and co-ordinated reform of the international tax rules during a meeting on 8 October, in Lima, Peru.

Prices for U.S. imports edged down 0.1 percent in September, after a 1.6-percent decrease in August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on October 9. The continued downward trend in nonfuel import prices more than offset an advance in fuel prices. The price index for U.S. exports declined 0.7 percent in September, following a 1.4-percent drop the previous month.

As migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East continue to arrive in Europe in unprecedented numbers, a new World Bank/IMF report says that large-scale migration from poor countries to richer regions of the world will be a permanent feature of the global economy for decades to come as a result of major population shifts in countries.

More citizens and small firms will be able to use the simplified EU procedure to resolve low-value disputes across borders thanks to changes voted by Parliament on Wednesday. These changes, which still need to be formally approved by EU ministers, would raise the ceiling on debts recoverable using the procedure from €2,000 to €5,000.

Four years of an economic downturn are beginning to have adverse effects on jobs and household incomes in Latin America and the Caribbean. After a commodity boom brought significant gains, a drop in labor force participation is causing families to feel the pinch, according to the latest World Bank semiannual regional report.

Economic and social reforms over the past two decades have enabled Peru to significantly improve growth and well-being while raising incomes and reducing poverty. However, further action is now needed to reduce inequality, boost productivity, drive down informality and put the country on a more sustainable development path, according to a new OECD report on October 8.

Germany, Italy and Belgium will get €14.6 million in EU aid to help redundant car and airline workers to find new jobs, and Bulgaria and Greece a total of €16.3 million to repair flood damage, after Parliament approved their applications on Tuesday.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría welcomed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement reached between governments in the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.

Parliament on Tuesday backed a set of one-off measures aimed at boosting the effective spending of €35 billion earmarked for Greece in the EU 2014-2020 budget. This includes €20 billion from the European structural and investment funds and €15 billion from agricultural funds.