Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

The UK’s world-leading medical science base has been boosted by £30 million of government and private investment in a new cutting edge research centre at the University of Oxford, Prime Minister David Cameron announced.

China, the world's largest producer of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC), received a US $95 million grant on April 23, 2013 to help reduce its production of HCFCs.

The second wave of funding reductions by western banks vis-à-vis Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe (CESEE) that started in mid-2011 is petering out. However, funding reductions have not stopped in all countries of the region and remain significant in Hungary and Slovenia, according to the latest Deleveraging Monitor from the Vienna 2 Initiative Steering Committee.

UNDP has helped establish small, women-run agricultural business cooperatives in rural Lebanon.

The European Commission has formally proposed to the Netherlands to abolish the exemption from corporate tax granted to Dutch public undertakings. The Commission considers that public companies that carry out economic activities in competition with private companies should likewise be subject to corporate tax – just as private companies are. Exempting certain companies merely because they are publicly owned gives them a competitive advantage which cannot be justified under EU state aid rules.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) will drive the recovery in Europe, but they need improved and easy access to finance. Over the last few years the European Commission has been constantly working to improve their situation. This commitment is reiterated in a joint European Commission/European Investment Bank (EIB) Group report published. At a time when the situation remains difficult, the EIB Group's support for SMEs reached €13 billion in 2012. In addition, with a budget of €1.1 billion, Commission-funded guarantees helped to mobilise loans worth more than €13 billion, boosting nearly 220 000 small businesses across Europe. The report covers the results of the current funding schemes as well as the new generation of financial instruments for SMEs. Financial resources for SMEs will be significantly enhanced through the €10 billion increase in the EIB’s capital.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a four-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement for Jamaica to support the authorities’ comprehensive economic reform agenda. The EFF arrangement amounts to SDR 615.38 million (about US$932.3 million), the equivalent of 225 percent of Jamaica’s quota in the IMF. The financing arrangement forms a critical part of a total funding package of US$2 billion from Jamaica’s multilateral partners including the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, with each having preliminarily agreed to allocate US$510 million over the next four years. The Executive Board approval enables an initial disbursement by the IMF of an amount equivalent to SDR 136.75 million (about US$207.2 million).

Greece’s severe financial crisis has bred social unrest and intolerance of the nearly one million irregular migrants living in the country.

The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced that total March exports of $184.3 billion and imports of $223.1 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $38.8 billion, down from $43.6 billion in February, revised. March exports were $1.7 billion less than February exports of $186.0 billion. March imports were $6.5 billion less than February imports of $229.6 billion.

Twenty social enterprises were awarded grants totaling $2 million by the India Development Marketplace (DM) funded by the World Bank Group (WBG). The grantees received $100,000 each to extend and scale up their innovative business models in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand. A number of financial institutions, social entrepreneurs, investors, and government officials participated at the India DM event organized to showcase these development solutions to the problems of the most vulnerable people.