Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

Rwanda’s economic achievements are based on real GDP growth that has averaged 8 percent a year over the past decade, subdued inflation, and foreign reserves maintained at adequate levels. This has enabled an impressive performance in reducing poverty, which had declined to below 45 percent in 2010-11 from 57 percent in 2005-06.

EU-US negotiations on the TTIP free trade agreement are continuing. The deal which is expected to create new jobs and boost economies on both sides of the Atlantic touches upon sensitive issues, not least rules for the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). On 27 January the international trade and legal affairs committees held a joint public hearing to shed light on the issues at play.

An International Monetary Fund mission, headed by Mr. Elie Canetti, visited Trinidad and Tobago from January 19 - 26, 2015 for a regular staff visit.

Western banks scaled back funding to Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) countries at a slightly faster pace in the third quarter of 2014, compared to the second quarter, according to a new Vienna Initiative committee report. Credit grew in Turkey, Russia, and Poland, but was largely flat or contracting in most other countries.

On January 15, 2015, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund concluded the fourth Post-Program Monitoring (PPM) with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and considered and endorsed the staff appraisal without a meeting.

In 2012, one-fifth of Iraq’s population lived below the poverty line, and a significant share of the Iraqi people was vulnerable to falling into poverty, according to a new World Bank Group report. Although the country experienced high economic growth, averaging seven percent annually between 2008 and 2012, poverty fell by only 4 percentage points during this time, and the richer segments of the population reaped more of the benefits

The ultimate owners of companies will have to be listed in central registers in EU countries, open both to the authorities and to people with a "legitimate interest", such as journalists, under a Parliament/Council deal endorsed by the Economic and Monetary Affairs and Civil Liberties committees on Tuesday.

Saying the world was “dangerously unprepared” for future pandemics, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim on January 27 laid out a vision in which insurance companies, governments, multi-lateral organizations, corporations and international donors worked together to build a system that would help all countries prepare for potentially catastrophic health disasters.

The Netherlands has completed the requirements for adherence to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Plus—the highest tier of the Data Standards Initiatives.