Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

Well-supplied markets are continuing to drive down prices of commodities, across the board, says the latest issue of the World Bank’s Commodity Markets Outlook (CMO).

22 April 2015 - Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko, President of Ukraine and Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary-General. OECD, Paris, France.

Mady Delvaux

Market-based logistics centers linking rails, flights, ships and other modes of transportation can facilitate the storage, handling and movement of China’s containerized freight, more effectively connecting China’s local markets with the rest of the world, according to a new World Bank research paper.

On April 8, 2015, the Management of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the first review under the Staff-Monitored Program (SMP) with Zimbabwe.

The Parliament’s budget and economic committees vote on 20 April on the establishment of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), a key element of the EU’s €315 billion plan to overcome the shortage of investment in the European economy caused by the crisis. This ambitious initiative, launched by the European Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker, should entail no extra financial burden for taxpayers.

Development MEPs urged EU member countries to respect their Official Development Assistance (ODA) target of 0.7% of national income and to set timetables for reaching it by 2020. It also highlighted the need to mobilise domestic resources efficiently in developing countries and stressed the importance of private-sector contributions in a resolution on financing development adopted on Monday.

A negotiating brief on the “Juncker” plan for a European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) to guarantee growth and job-creating investment was backed by the Budgets and Economic and Monetary Affairs committees on Monday evening. But MEPs contested plans to feed the fund from the EU research and transport investment budgets, and called for more parliamentary control over its leadership and goals.

Experts and policy makers gathered at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to discuss the future of pensions in Latin America and the Caribbean on April 20. A panel discussion moderated by CNN journalist Gabriela Frias explored different policy approaches to ensure greater coverage and sustainability of pension systems in the region.