Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

28 April 2015 - Mr. Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General with OECD Secretary-General, Angel Gurría. OECD, Paris, France.

The value of key ocean assets is conservatively estimated in the report to be at least US$24 trillion. If compared to the world’s top 10 economies, the ocean would rank seventh with an annual value of goods and services of US$2.5 trillion.

The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved an IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) loan of US$60 million for the First Programmatic Private Sector Competitiveness Development Policy Operation for Georgia on April 28. This is the first in a series of three Development Policy Operations (DPOs) aimed at strengthening shared prosperity and eliminating extreme poverty in Georgia through policies that stimulate private sector productivity, foster investment and create a fair business environment that enables growth by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and new firms.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission led by Vladimir Klyuev visited Port Vila and Luganville, Vanuatu, during April 15-28 to conduct the 2015 Article IV Consultation, and discuss policies and IMF financial assistance to support economic recovery in the wake of Cyclone Pam.

“Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy is set to register another year of solid economic performance with growth expected to expand 4½ percent in 2015. The region will continue being one of the fastest growing in the world—second only to emerging and developing Asia. That said, the economic expansion will be at the lower end of the range experienced in recent years, mainly reflecting the impact of the sharp decline of oil and commodity prices over the last six months. But the impact of this shock will be highly differentiated across the region.

The World Bank suggests priority structural transformation measures to tackle the multifaceted economic imbalances. Policies to ensure macroeconomic stability, create efficient financial markets, facilitate a dynamic labor market, put in place a robust social safety net, transform the state-owned sector, and to generate private sector growth and jobs are the core areas of the structural reform roadmap being elaborated by the Government with assistance from the World Bank. The commitment to the reforms is all the more important as the World Bank projects a negative growth outlook for Belarus in 2015-2016.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the first review of Chad’s economic performance under the program supported by an Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement on April 27. It also approved the authorities’ request for an augmentation of access by SDR 26.64 million (40 percent of the country’s quota).

The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of several assets of Holcim of Switzerland and of Lafarge of France by Irish building materials manufacturer CRH. The Commission concluded that the transaction would raise no competition concerns, in particular because the merged entity will continue to face sufficiently strong competition after the merger and customers will have alternative suppliers in all markets concerned.

The European External Action Service and the European Commission on 24 April released their latest annual report to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers on political and economic developments in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), covering 2014.

Total primary energy supply 1995-2013