Public Intelligence

Since the fourth review, the situation in Greece has taken a turn for the worse, with the economy increasingly adjusting through recession and related wage-price channels, rather than through structural reform driven increases in productivity. The authorities have also struggled to meet their policy commitments against these headwinds. For the purpose of the debt sustainability assessment, a revised baseline has been specified, which takes into account the implications of these developments for future growth and for likely policy outcomes. It has been extended through 2030 to fully capture long term growth dynamics, and possible financing implications.

The Obama administration is pressing its European counterparts to act more quickly and decisively to contain the Greek financial crisis before its fallout undermines a recovery in Europe and spreads across the Atlantic to the U.S. After a Friday morning conference call among finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven—the U.S., Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Britain and Italy—President Barack Obama spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to reinforce that message. “We agreed on the importance of a strong policy response by the affected countries and a strong financial response from the international community,” Mr. Obama told reporters.

Tens of thousands of Greeks took to the streets Wednesday as much of the country went on a 24-hour strike against government austerity measures. A small group of youths threw Molotov cocktails at police, who responded with tear gas. However, the 20,000 people who filed through downtown Athens—a relatively large crowd for a Greek strike—mostly limited themselves to chanting anti-government slogans. Public- and private-sector unions called the strike to protest a range of measures aimed at reducing Greece’s budget deficit. The government has announced a freeze on civil-service wages, cuts in public-sector entitlements and the closing of tax loopholes for certain professions, including some civil servants. It has also announced a fuel-tax increase.

The US investment bank said there is a danger Britain’s toxic mix of problems will come to a head as soon as next year, triggered by fears that Westminster may prove unable to restore fiscal credibility. “Growing fears over a hung parliament would likely weigh on both the currency and gilt yields as it would represent something of a leap into the unknown, and would increase the probability that some of the rating agencies remove the UK’s AAA status,” said the report, written by the bank’s European investment team of Ronan Carr, Teun Draaisma, and Graham Secker.

The US budget deficit reached 1.3 trillion dollars for the current fiscal year in July, official data showed, news set to fuel opposition to US President Barack Obama’s ambitious health care and climate change proposals. The deficit for the first 10 months of fiscal year 2009, which began October 1, reached 1.3 trillion dollars, close to 880 billion dollars greater than the deficit recorded through July 2008, said the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Uruguay is currently in the midst of a dual transition. First, there is an economic transition from the 2002 crisis towards a path of equitable and sustainable development, as the economy continues to recover strongly. Second, there is a political transition, as the victory of the Frente Amplio – Encuentro Progresista – Nueva Mayoría coalition in the October 2004 elections marked a new phase in the country’s political history.

The FY03-05 CAS and the FY06-07 ISN were aligned around Nicaragua’s first Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) which was later revised and renamed the National Development Plan in 2005. Although Nicaragua’s core objective to reduce extreme poverty was not achieved to the extent desirable, achievements were made across the program with considerable progress in promoting a stable macroeconomic environment, reducing the fiscal deficit significantly, and lowering external debt to sustainable levels by achieving the HIPC Completion Point and obtaining further debt reduction through the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). Growth has been modest averaging around 3.2 percent per year since 2002, and exports have doubled. Though the Bank was instrumental in the increase of poverty spending from 9.6 percent of GDP in 2002 to 13.6 percent in 2006, greater expenditure has yet to translate into significant gains in poverty reduction.