Greece Seeks to Lure U.K.-Based Shipowners, Brokers on Brexit

by Paul Tugwell  and Sotiris Nikas
31 Μαΐου 2017, 2:05 π.μ. EEST
Bloomberg

The Greek government wants to persuade shipowners and shipping-insurance companies based in London to move their European Union headquarters to Greece as the U.K. prepares to exit the bloc.

“We’re in contact with five large ship-insurance brokers who are considering various EU member countries for the transfer of their headquarters,” Shipping Minister Panagiotis Kouroumblis said in an interview in Piraeus, Greece’s biggest port. Kouroumblis declined to name the firms as the talks are private. “We’ll meet by the latest in June to discuss the terms they’d like in order to choose Greece,” he said.

BlueBay Turns Short Pound as 'All Roads' Point to Hard Brexit

by Anooja Debnath
24 May 2017, 7:00 π.μ. EEST

Bloomberg

Sterling could drop to $1.20 toward end of this year: Dowding

Bundesbank’s Dombret says Brexit to be hard or very hard
The pound is heading lower whatever the outcome of the U.K.’s elections, according to BlueBay Asset Management.

Greece cuts 2017 growth forecast

Sat May 13, 2017 | 5:24pm EDT

Reuters

Greece cut its 2017 growth forecast to 1.8 percent from 2.7 percent, according to a mid-term budget plan unveiled late on Saturday, driven by uncertainty caused by delays in concluding the latest review of bailout reforms.

Greece and its foreign creditors reached a deal on reforms in early May after six months of tense negotiations but the wrangling hurt economic activity. The Greek central bank governor had warned the delays could hobble economic recovery.

China's Xi offers indebted Greece strong support

Sat May 13, 2017 | 12:50am EDT
Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping offered the prime minister of deeply indebted Greece strong support on Saturday, saying the two countries should expand cooperation in infrastructure, energy and telecommunications.

Xi told Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that Greece was an important part in China's new Silk Road strategy.

"At present, China and Greece's traditional friendship and cooperation continues to glow with new dynamism," China's Foreign Ministry cited Xi as saying.

Data is giving rise to a new economy

Fuel of the future

How is it shaping up?

The Economist

 May 6th 2017
AN OIL refinery is an industrial cathedral, a place of power, drama and dark recesses: ornate cracking towers its gothic pinnacles, flaring gas its stained glass, the stench of hydrocarbons its heady incense. Data centres, in contrast, offer a less obvious spectacle: windowless grey buildings that boast no height or ornament, they seem to stretch to infinity.

Yet the two have much in common. For one thing, both are stuffed with pipes. In refineries these collect petrol, propane and other components of crude oil, which have been separated by heat. In big data centres they transport air to cool tens of thousands of computers which extract value—patterns, predictions and other insights—from raw digital information.

The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data

The data economy demands a new approach to antitrust rules

Economist

A NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital advertising in America last year.

Carl Bildt: In defence of globalization

World Economic Forum

I must confess that I am a firm believer in the benefits of globalization. To my mind, the gradual interlinking of regions, countries, and people is the most profoundly positive development of our time.

But a populist has now assumed the United States presidency by campaigning on a platform of stark economic nationalism and protectionism. And in many countries, public discourse is dominated by talk of globalization’s alleged “losers,” and the perceived need for new policies to stem the rise of populist discontent.

When I was born, the world’s population was 2.5 billion. I vividly recall a time in my life when many people feared that starvation would soon run rampant, gaps between the rich and poor would grow ever wider, and everything would eventually come crashing down.

Brexit Bulletin: Can Britain Split the Difference?

The U.K. may need to drive a wedge between EU states in Brexit talks. So far the Continent is singing with one voice.
by Simon Kennedy
14 February 2017, 9:30 π.μ. EET

It now looks like Theresa May was a little naive.

Back in October, the U.K. prime minister said she hoped her commitment to start the Brexit process by the end of March would prove enough for the European Union to engage in some “preparatory work” beforehand.

“This is important,” she told the BBC. “It’s not just important for the U.K.; it’s important for Europe as a whole.”

Instead, European officials held their line that there would be “no negotiation without notification” that Britain was definitely leaving.

U.K. Business Says Brexit Already Having a Negative Effect

by Tim Ross  and Lucy Meakin
6 February 2017, 10:22 π.μ. EET 6

Brexit has already damaged businesses even before Prime Minister Theresa May triggers the start of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, according to a survey of the country’s largest companies.

More than half -- 58 percent -- of top executives at Britain’s biggest firms said the vote to quit the bloc has had a negative impact on their businesses, the Ipsos MORI “Captains of Industry” poll found. Two-thirds of the chief executives, chairmen and directors interviewed for the survey said they believed the business situation would worsen in the next 12 months.

U.K.’s Brexit Plan: Prepare for Failure, Hope for Success

by Tim Ross , Robert Hutton , and Alex Morales
2 February 2017, 11:31 μ.μ. EET
Bloomberg
Prime Minister Theresa May is making plans for emergency laws to protect the U.K. economy in case Brexit negotiations break down without a free-trade deal, as concerns grow that she’ll fail to achieve the sweeping agreement she wants.

In its 75-page plan for Brexit, May’s government said on Thursday that while it was expecting to find common ground with the 27 other members of the European Union, it will prepare contingency measures to avert economic chaos if the discussions collapsed.

Oil edges up on threat of U.S. issuing new Iran sanctions

Fri Feb 3, 2017 | 2:23am EST

Reuters

By Keith Wallis and Osamu Tsukimori | SINGAPORE/TOKYO
Oil prices edged up on Friday on news that U.S. President Donald Trump could be set to impose new sanctions on multiple Iranian entities, firing geopolitical tensions between the two nations.

Comments by Russian energy minister Alexander Novak that oil producers had cut their output in accordance with a pact agreed in December also helped support prices, analysts said.

Reuters reported on Thursday that Trump's administration is prepared to roll out new measures against more than two dozen Iranian targets following Tehran's ballistic missile test, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Europe gets creative to win banks after Brexit

Wed Feb 1, 2017 | 10:56am EST

Reuters

By Anjuli Davies, Andrew MacAskill and John O'Donnell | LONDON/FRANKFURT
Regulators in European countries competing for post-Brexit banking business are offering London-based banks a range of short-term workarounds to help them relocate, bankers, regulators and lawyers say.

Global banks have warned they might have to move their European bases from Britain if its departure from the European Union means they lose "passporting" rights to operate across the bloc under the supervision of just one member state's regulator.

Brexit negotiations have yet to start and will take years but big centers like Frankfurt and Paris, as well as smaller ones like Dublin, Amsterdam and Luxembourg, are encouraging banks, insurers and fund managers to consider moving to them.

Theresa May Gets Parliament’s Backing on ‘Brexit’ Bill

By STEPHEN CASTLEFEB. 1, 2017

The New York Times

LONDON — Easily winning a crucial vote among lawmakers, Prime Minister Theresa May was well on her way Wednesday to winning the parliamentary approval that Britain’s highest court said she needed before she could begin talks on ending more than four decades of European integration.

Wednesday’s vote, in the House of Commons, will not be the final parliamentary verdict on Mrs. May’s plans, but with 498 lawmakers in favor and 114 against, it was emphatic enough to show that any subsequent efforts in Parliament to complicate, or slow, the path to withdrawal would probably be in vain.

China’s 6.7% Growth Fueled by Soaring Real Estate and Consumer Spending

By KEITH BRADSHERJAN. 19, 2017

The New York Times

BEIJING — China’s economy grew 6.7 percent last year and even accelerated slightly to 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the government announced on Friday morning, while dismissing concerns about the enormous lending that was needed to achieve that growth.

The strong results came after a weak start last year, when China’s currency and stock market were tumbling and many foreign investors fretted that the country’s three decades of robust economic expansion might be ending.

World leaders find hope for globalization in Davos amid populist revolt

By Max Ehrenfreund January 17 at 6:30 PM

The Washington Post


DAVOS, Switzerland — Amid growing doubts about the future of free trade and international economic cooperation, proponents of globalization found reasons for optimism as the World Economic Forum opened Tuesday.

The specters of President-elect Donald Trump’s protectionist rhetoric and the British exit from the European Union loomed over the annual event that attracts world leaders and dignitaries to this mountain resort town to discuss the state of the global economy.

In ‘Brexit’ Speech, Theresa May Outlines Clean Break for U.K.

By STEPHEN CASTLE and STEVEN ERLANGERJAN. 17, 2017
The New York Times

LONDON — “Get on with it.”

With those words in a major speech on Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May charted Britain’s course toward a clean break with the European Union and expressed her fondest hope: that the time for “division and discord” is over.

Her much-anticipated speech outlined what promised to be a hugely complex, drawn-out negotiation, and it defined the broad objectives, but not the details, of British withdrawal. “The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, and my job is to get the right deal for Britain as we do,” she said.

Mersch Says ECB Policy Shift Premature as Economy Shows Strength

by Carolynn Look  and Fabio Benedetti Valentini
January 6, 2017, 12:00 PM GMT+2

Bloomberg

Improving euro-area economic numbers and a faster-than-forecast inflation pickup aren’t enough to warrant an immediate shift in the European Central Bank’s policy, according to Executive Board member Yves Mersch.

“It is absolutely premature today to claim victory over a weak economy,” Mersch, considered one of the more hawkish members of the ECB’s Governing Council said in Paris on Friday. “We have good results but it is absolutely premature to say: drop the guard.”

How Greece’s Troubled Economy Could Turn Around in 2017

Nicholas Economides
Updated: Jan 03, 2017 8:48 PM UTC
Fortune

Violating the terms of its bailout program, the Greek government recently announced that it will distribute a sizeable “Christmas gift” to Greek pensioners even though this requires additional borrowing from the EU since the Greek budget is not balanced and Greece cannot borrow from money markets. The move has prompted the EU finance ministers to freeze implementation of debt restructuring. Greece is at the brink again.

Euro-Area Economy Ended Year With Fastest Growth Since 2011

by Carolynn Look
4 January 2017, 11:00 π.μ. EET

Bloomberg

The euro-area economy finished 2016 with the strongest momentum in more than 5 1/2 years, bolstering the region as it heads into a year of political uncertainty.

A composite Purchasing Managers’ Index climbed to 54.4 in December from 53.9 in November, IHS Markit said on Wednesday. That’s the highest in 67 months and above a Dec. 15 estimate.

Record Capital Outflows Push Euro Toward Parity With Dollar

Higher interest rates in the U.S. are drawing money out of the eurozone

The Wall Street Journal

By MIKE BIRD
Updated Dec. 20, 2016 5:32 p.m. ET

More money has left eurozone financial markets this year than at any time in the bloc’s history, helping drive the euro toward parity with the dollar for the first time in 14 years.

The eurozone had its largest-ever net outflows in the 12 months to September, data from the European Central Bank showed Tuesday.

Eurozone investors bought €497.5 billion ($516.5 billion) of financial assets, such as stocks and bonds, outside the bloc in that period. Global investors, meanwhile, sold or let mature €31.3 billion of eurozone assets during the year. Together, that adds up to a net outflow of €528.8 billion, the most since the single currency was introduced in 1999.