Saturday 21 April 2012

IMF raises funds, German business confidence and UK retail sales improve

The IMF has managed to boost its lending power. Bloomberg reports:

Governments committed more than $430 billion in fresh money to the International Monetary Fund to help it protect the world economy against deepening debt turmoil in Europe.

The near-doubling of the fund’s firepower was announced after Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers met today in Washington. While the U.K. and Saudi Arabia were among those making specific pledges, Brazil said emerging markets would condition their help on being handed more power at the IMF.

In the meantime, economic data on Friday suggest that some of Europe's bigger economies are not doing too badly.

The Ifo institute’s business climate index for Germany rose for the sixth month in a row to a nine-month high of 109.9 in April from 109.8 in March.

In the UK, retail sales rose 1.8 in March, the fastest pace in more than a year, rebounding from a 0.8 percent fall in February.

No comments:

Post a Comment