Business and Finance News

Barnardos, the children’s charity has been surveying for a decade the additional costs of free Irish education for parents besides the State’s provision of teachers and facilities. It says that one of “the greatest myths perpetuated by the Government i…

Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, on Tuesday said the Fund expects global economic growth to weaken and that Asia, while still leading growth, risks slowing further as China’s economy adjusts to a new economic model.

Unemployment in the Euro Area dipped to its lowest level in more than 3 years in July, suggesting that the region’s recovery is at last gaining pace. Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, reported on Tuesday that the seasonally adjusted unemployment ra…

Growth in the global manufacturing sector remained lacklustre during August. The rate of expansion in production volumes eased to the weakest seen in 28 months and the pace of increase in new business stayed close to recent lows. In the US factory outp…

In the first half of 2015 global trade fell in the worst performance since the first half of 2009 at the height of the financial crisis. Further to World Bank research published in August which showed that devaluations were losing their firepower, this…

August data PMI survey data show a further expansion of the Euro Area manufacturing sector, as continued growth in Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Ireland offset the ongoing contractions in France and Greece. At 52.3 in August, the final seasonally adjusted Euro Area Manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) was only a shade below its earlier flash estimate and July’s final posting (both 52.4).

Growth of the Irish manufacturing sector continued in August, although output, new orders and employment all rose at weaker rates than in the previous month. The rate of cost inflation eased to a six-month low and firms reduced their output prices for …

Manufacturing PMI surveys produced by Markit, a London-based index firm, showed a sharp fall in China in July but with the exception of Japan, there was weakness or contraction in several countries across Asia.

Europe is split on the handling of the influx of migrants, about half coming from the wars and civic breakdowns in North Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan. On Monday Angela Merkel, German chancellor, warned Germany’s eastern neighbours that the S…

Emmanuel Macron, France’s 37-year old reforming economy minister, has called for a Euro Area economic government that would include a transfer union. He also called for a powerful euro commissioner in Brussels. Macron told a German newspaper that the euro crisis and the negotiations for a bailout package for Greece proved that the monetary union could not go on as before.