Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

Signaling the end of the double-dip recession of 2012, the group of six South East European (SEE6) countries is now making a fragile recovery: its combined real GDP is projected to grow 1.7 percent in 2013 after a 0.6 percent decline in 2012, according to the latest World Bank South East Europe Regular Economic Report (SEE RER), presented in Pristina.

A new OECD report, A Step Change in Tax Transparency, prepared at the request of the G8 for the Lough Erne Summit, outlines four concrete steps needed to put in place a global, secure and cost effective model of automatic exchange of information.

The number of people over 80 will double by 2050 rising from 3.9% of the population to 9.1% in 2050 across OECD countries and from 4.7% to 11.3% across 27 EU members. Estimates are that up to half of them will need help to cope with their daily needs.

The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of Central European Media Enterprises ("CME"), based in Bermuda, by Time Warner of the United States. The Commission's investigation confirmed that the proposed transaction will not have negative effects on competition, since the activities of the parties are mainly complementary and not in direct competition with each other.

A new strategy that will generate fresh growth opportunities for some of the UK’s most innovative technology businesses will be published.

The World Bank Group announced the debarment of GHD Pty Ltd. (Australia), GHD Indonesian Operating Center and PT Global Hutama Desain (PT GHD) for a period of one year following the World Bank Sanction Board’s decision in relation to fraudulent practices in a Bank-financed infrastructure project in Indonesia.

An exemption on IP for pharmaceuticals expires in 2016.

Migration has started to pick up again, driven largely by people moving within the European Union, after three years of continuous decline during the crisis. But the employment prospects for immigrants have worsened, with around one in two unemployed immigrants in Europe still looking for work after more than 12 months, according to a new OECD report.

Risks from advanced economies have eased and growth is firming, despite ongoing contraction in the Euro Area. However, the pick-up in developing countries will be modest because of capacity constraints in several middle income countries, says the World Bank in the newly-released Global Economic Prospects (GEP) report.