« April 2008 | Ana Sayfa | June 2008 »
Dmitry Medvedev said that strengthening Russia's ties with other former Soviet republics would be a priority of his presidency, presenting one of the first planks of his foreign policy after taking office two weeks ago, The Moscow Times reports:
"Medvedev spoke following a meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana, his first stop on his first foreign trip as president. He will wrap up the trip in Beijing over the weekend."
President George W. Bush signed into law an economic stimulus package that is aimed at staving off a recession by offering tax rebates and incentives to businesses to invest, Reuters reports:
"Here are some details of the plan:
* The total package is worth about $168 billion over two years, roughly 1 percent of U.S. economic output, and will add directly to the U.S. federal deficit."
Steps taken after the Turkish government declared 2005 the "Year of Africa" for foreign trade have so far proven fruitful, and the "Africa strategy" devised by the undersecretary for foreign trade has triggered an increasing interest in the continent, TUSKON reports:
As a consequence Turkish investments in Africa started climbing in a steadily increasing trend and are estimated to reach $1 billion in total by the end of this year.
Financial panics are indeed dramatic and, for many private individuals and economic policymakers, traumatic. They are rarely of lasting significance to the fate of nations or their
currencies, however, as the prompt recovery of Korea, Mexico, and Russia from their travails a decade ago demonstrates—as indeed does the lack of any lasting impact from the United States’ closing of the “gold window” on the dollar’s standing or on U.S. economic performance, Adam S. Posen, the Deputy Director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics writes:
Though such calm is difficult to maintain while the United States experiences a panic in its many interlocking asset-backed securities markets, following years of large current
account deficits and a concurrent sell-off of the dollar against the euro, it would be a mistake to read too much into recent developments.
The dollar rose the most against the euro since March and reached a two-month high versus the yen as traders bet the Federal Reserve will stop cutting interest rates and the U.S. lost fewer jobs in April than economists forecast, Bloomberg reports:
The currency appreciated versus the Swiss franc, the Swedish krona and the South Korean won this week after the Fed cut the target lending rate by a quarter-percentage point on April 30 and said ``substantial'' easing since September would help foster economic growth. The euro weakened as confidence among European executives and consumers fell in April.
Rising food and commodity prices that are stoking inflation will probably dominate a meeting of the Asian Development Bank as the region's finance ministers seek ways to shield their economies from higher costs, Bloomberg reports:
Japan's Fukushiro Nukaga, China's Xie Xuren, South Korea's Kang Man Soo and Southeast Asian ministers are meeting at the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank's annual gathering in Madrid this weekend. Inflation in Asia is expected to reach a decade-high this year even as economic growth cools, ADB predicts.
Cash may be easier to come by for banks, but lending will still be under tremendous pressure, hitting consumers, businesses and the economy as a whole, International Herald Tribune reports:
That tightness in credit could itself hit banks' assets with another round of losses, setting the stage for yet another liquidity crisis.
Investors have become more optimistic recently, and with some grounds.
