ATHENS | By MacroPolis | Following a meeting last week between Bank of Greece (BoG) senior officials with the top management of the four Greek systemic banks (Alpha, Eurobank, National and Piraeus), where the central bank reportedly informed lenders that their capital needs amount to around 5 billion euros, a Financial Times report published on Monday puts things in a completely different perspective.
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | 22 million Spaniards are active apps users and 4 million apps for smartphones, tablets and TV are downloaded every day. No matter the economic crisis, “in this harsh work environment, app development still has an increasingly strong potential,” Microsoft analysts point out. As the industry leaders gather in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress starting on Monday – they’ll make the deals that we’ll hear about for the rest of the year, by the way- brands are complaining about how hard it is to monetize apps in a country too used to download them without paying a cent.
As there is no perfect model or even a template for democracy, one cannot avoid the realities that underlie the role of corruption in any country — realities which must be dealt with for transparency to become a national value. “Affecting all EU Member States, corruption costs the European economy around €120 billion per year. Corruption undermines citizens’ confidence in democratic institutions and the rule of law; it hurts the European economy and deprives States from much-needed tax revenue”, Cecilia Malmstrom, EU commissioner for Home Affairs, has recently stated.
BEIJING | By Andy Xie | The fact that emerging market economies have not borrowed in foreign currencies means there’s a way out, and a soft landing will be helped if China keeps its currency stable.
NEW YORK | A guest post by Benjamin Cole via Historinhas |The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks “unit labor costs,” and back on February 6, they came out with their latest report. Usually I look for this report, but this time I missed it. The news? We are in deflation, when it comes to labor costs.
BEIJING | Op-ed by Wang Yong via Caixin | Private business owners in China are, out of desperation, breaking laws under a legal system that China must reform. An entrepreneur who has no basic rights guaranteed may fawn on political elites because this is probably the only way to guarantee personal safety. We could call that the private sector’s “crime of necessity.”
By David Denton via The Richter Scale | For anyone who was growing up in the 1970s there is a short list of things that one has to be concerned about: The music of The Bay City Rollers, the instant pudding – “angel delight”, playing rugby against the Welsh and inflation. Although the oil price shocks affected all industrialised economies inflation had a particularly severe impact on the UK, we quickly became known as the sick man of Europe.
MADRID | By The Corner Team | Whether they are awarded with the projects or not remains unknown but Spanish construction firms are bidding for relevant purchases and infrastructures in Europe with the aim of continuing their international expansion and thus softening the fall in their domestic market. As Ferrovial would have make a €800 million offer for control stakes in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports, ACS, OHL and FCC will fight to build a submarine tunnel connecting Germany and Denmark valued at €5,5 billion.
MADRID | By Alex García and @ADe_Tocqueville
THE CORNER TEAM | Photo by Reuters