Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

Mr. Gerry Rice, Director of Communications at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Monday made the following statement regarding Greece’s financial obligations to the IMF due on July 13:

“The SDR 360 million principal repayment (about EUR 456 million) due by Greece to the IMF today was not received. We have informed our Executive Board of this development. Greece’s arrears to the IMF total SDR 1.6 billion (about EUR 2.0 billion) to date.

The jobs recovery is slowly gathering pace, but employment will remain well below pre-crisis levels in many countries, especially in Europe, through to the end of 2016, according to a new OECD report.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted a EUR 25 million loan to support the Sapec group’s research, development and innovation (RDI) programme relating to plant protection and nutrition products. The finance contract was signed on July 10 by EIB Vice-President Román Escolano, António Marques, CFO and Board Member of Sapec Group and Nuno Loureiro, CFO and Board Member of Agrobusiness (Sapec Agro e Tradecorp) in Lisbon.

The World Bank and IMF are launching a new initiative to help developing countries strengthen their tax systems. Analysis suggests that many lower-income countries have the potential to increase their tax ratios by at least 2–4 percent of GDP, without compromising fairness or growth. Raising additional revenues will allow developing countries to fill financing gaps and to promote development.

The multilateral development banks (MDBs) and IMF on July 10 signaled plans to extend more than $400 billion in financing over the next three years and vowed to work more closely with private and public sector partners to help mobilize the resources needed to meet the historic challenge of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Stable growth momentum in the OECD area

The EU and its member states should make multinationals report their financial performance, tax details, assets and employee numbers country by country, so as to help fight tax evasion and illicit money flows in developing countries, says Parliament in a non-binding resolution voted on Wednesday. MEPs also call on EU financial institutions to ensure that companies receiving EU support do not “participate” in tax evasion.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on July 6, 2015, discussed the IMF’s role in supporting the post-2015 development agenda, ahead of the upcoming third United Nations (UN) Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) to be held in Addis Ababa from July 13–16, 2015. Having adopted a package of measures to expand developing countries’ access to Fund resources on July 1, the Board supported new initiatives by the IMF to enhance its support for developing country members as they pursue their development goals.