Business and Finance News

Kyodo News reports that the Japanese economy shrank an annualised real 0.8% in the July-September period — the second straight quarterly contraction — dragged down by a weak recovery in consumer spending and sluggish capital investment, the government said Monday.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to increase the scale of its bond-buying programme after disappointing growth data for the Euro Area were published on Friday. Following strong US jobs data in October, the Federal Reserve may raise the key US federal funds rate for the first time since 2006, at its policy meeting on 15-16 Dec while Mario Draghi, ECB president, has given strong hints that the governing council may expand its €60bn a month asset-purchase program in December and also extend the programme beyond its intended run through September 2016.

The Financial Times reports that copper, considered a barometer for global economic growth because of its wide range of industrial uses, fell to a six-year low below $5,000 a tonne on Thursday. Oil, which dipped almost 20% since a rally in October, fell under $45 a barrel on Thursday, less than half the level it traded at for much of this decade. China again is the focus and Goldman Sachs said this week that recent data pointed to contracting demand in China’s “old economy” as the government struggles to manage a transition to more consumer-led growth. However, it’s not all doom and gloom and a three-decades long foreign resident has highlighted five myths about the Middle Kingdom.

In 2012 George Osborne, UK chancellor, spoke of the “march of the makers” challenging companies to double exports to £1tn by 2020 — the target will not be met. Neither will the British government target to add 100,000 exporters be met — the numbers fell in 2014. Last March in Ireland, Enda Kenny, taoiseach, said in a speech on the Irish 2014 trade performance that “export growth at 12.6% was the strongest since 2001.” This jump on the 2013 export headline value masked a reality that is a taboo issue at official level — the indigenous international trading sector is among the worst in Europe.

Last week the head of the British Chambers of Commerce said that “The UK has too few exporting companies” but even at official level there is a wide gulf in the estimates of the number of British exporting firms. In an analysis of European economies, w…

A dramatic slowdown in global trade, triggered by falls in demand in China and other emerging markets, is impacting the global recovery, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Monday.

German exports recovered in September, but there may be squalls ahead in the wake of the Volkswagen diesel scandal. Compared with August 2015, exports increased by a calendar and seasonally adjusted 2.6%, and imports by 3.6% — in August exports plunged 5.2% while imports dipped 3.2%.

The Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) says “Irish tech SMEs” raised €415m to end September 2015, an increase of 32% on the same period last year. The VenturePulse survey which is published in association with William Fry, the Dublin law firm, includes several firms that are controlled from the US but are legally Irish for tax purposes.

US nonfarm payroll employment rose by 271,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.0%. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and construct…

Angela Merkel, German chancellor, on Thursday rejected the proposal of a junior coalition partner to build transit zones on Germany’s borders for processing refugees. Also on Thursday the European Commission said that the economic impact of the arrival…