Business and Finance News

The ‘Innovation 2020 – Ireland’s Strategy for Research and Development, Science and Technology’ document launched by Enda Kenny, taoiseach, on Tuesday is not a strategy but a politically-driven brochure of aspirations prefaced by the words ‘we will’ 14…

European venture capital (VC) investments are on a healthy upward trend, returns and money multiples are growing, innovation hubs are emerging, and serial entrepreneurs are flourishing. However, European fund-raising has steadily slowed, while governme…

The stock of Euro Area government bonds trading at negative yields at the end of November, was valued at more than €1.9tn — or approximately one third of the total market — according to the latest Bank for International Settlements (BIS) quarterly report, published Sunday. On Friday in New York following Thursday’s market disappointment with an extension of the monthly purchase of €60bn worth of bonds in the market by six months to March 2017, Mario Draghi, ECB president, made an emphatic statement that the central bank had “the power to act, the determination to act and the commitment to act” to meet its mandate of annual headline inflation of about 2%.

US nonfarm payroll employment rose by 211,000 in November, and the headline unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0%. Job gains occurred in construction, professional and technical services, and health care. Employment declined in mining and information…

Corporate tax revenues have been falling across Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries since the global economic crisis, putting greater pressure on individual taxpayers to ensure that governments meet financing requirem…

The Irish broad rate of unemployment was at 19% in November 2015 with the numbers on the Live Register at a seasonally adjusted total of 330,000. Coupled with the 80,600 people who participate in public funded activation schemes, the total in receipt o…

Irish Exchequer Returns for the 11 months to November show that corporation tax was up €2.3bn on the 2015 target and €2.2bn up on 2014 while overall tax revenues of €41.9bn were €2.9bn above target. Receipts were €3.8bn or 10% ahead of the same period in 2014.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan this week created a stir when they were reported to have pledged to give away 99% of their shares in the company — worth according to themselves $45bn — to good causes, when they announced the birth of their daughter Max (Maxima). Amidst all the bad news this good news got a lot of attention and it may seem churlish to undermine it. However, the truth is that the Facebook founder effectively pays no income tax and the shares are not being given to a charity.

China achieved a significant economic milestone Monday, when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) added the renminbi (RMB) to its basket of reserve currencies, a move that is likely to result in financial reforms in the world’s second-biggest economy. The Chinese currency, the renminbi (RMB), is to be included in the basket of currencies which make up the IMF’s Special Drawing Right, or SDR – “Renminbi” is the official name of the currency introduced by the Communist People’s Republic of China in 1949 and it means “the people’s currency” in Mandarin while “yuán” is the name of a unit of the renminbi. Something for example may cost one yuan or 10 yuán not 10 renminbi.

The Euro Area (EA19) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 10.7% in October 2015, down from 10.8% in September 2015, and from 11.5% in October 2014. This is the lowest rate recorded in the Euro Area since January 2012. The EU28 unemployment rate wa…