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The world's finance ministers and central bankers gather April 17-19 in Washington.
By Brian Blackstone, Todd Buell
FRANKFURT—The European Central Bank warned in a report Thursday that the Greek debt crisis could spread to other at-risk eurozone countries if Athens fails to reach a financing deal with its international creditors quickly, underscoring the high stakes involved in the country's negotiations with its lenders.
Still, in a news conference, ECB Vice President Vítor Constâncio played down concerns in financial markets that Greece may ultimately be forced out of the euro if it fails to pay its debts to the International Monetary Fund and other creditors.
His comments came amid mixed signals over the status of Greece's debt talks, with Athens striking an optimistic tone that a deal is within reach while Germany's finance minister said the two sides are still far apart.
A Greek default wouldn't automatically mean that its banks are insolvent, Mr. Constâncio said at a press briefing accompanying the release of a report on financial stability in Europe. But the ECB would have to include the implications of such an event in its analysis of the financial health of the country's financial institutions that rely heavily on ECB loans for funding, he said.
"There is no automatic connection between a default of the Greek government and the solvency of the Greek banks," Mr. Constâncio said, stressing the word "automatic." He noted that the share of Greek government bonds in total bank capital is quite small. Such an occurrence may influence the ECB's impairment analysis of the exposure of Greek banks to the state, he added.
Mr. Constâncio said he was convinced that Greece won't exit the euro.
"It is difficult to build up a narrative where that extreme case can happen," he said. A country cannot legally be expelled from the currency bloc, he noted, adding that a rising share of Greek citizens have said they want to stay in the euro.
Still, the ECB warned against complacency in its twice-yearly Financial Stability Review, which examines the state of Europe's financial markets and identifies trouble spots. "Financial market reactions to the developments in Greece have been muted to date, but in the absence of a quick agreement on structural implementation needs, the risk of an upward adjustment of the risk premia demanded on vulnerable euro-area sovereigns could materialize," the ECB said.
Greece is in protracted negotiations with its eurozone creditors over the future of its bailout deal. On Thursday, the Greek government suggested an agreement is near. "The optimism expressed by the Greek government is based on actual facts," government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis
told reporters. "The conditions are ripe to have a deal."
Other eurozone leaders, such as German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, have shed doubt on such claims.
"We always hear positive news coming out of Greece, which is good. However, we haven't gotten much further in substance in the negotiations between the three institutions and the Greek government," Mr. Schäuble said on German public broadcaster ARD on Wednesday.
Talks between the negotiating teams in Brussels are expected to continue to the end of the week and discussions between eurozone finance ministry officials are scheduled for Thursday. Significant differences remain on pensions, privatization, labor law and fiscal austerity.
Greece is under pressure to agree to economic overhauls with its creditors to unlock new financing. Athens is believed to have enough cash left to repay a loan of €300 million ($330 million) to the IMF on June 5, but probably won't have enough to cover three further repayments due mid-June.
Meanwhile, Greek banks are heavily dependent on ECB loans for funding amid a steady decline in bank deposits there. Mr. Constâncio pegged the total amount of support—through regular ECB loans and emergency liquidity via the Greek central bank—at €114 billion.
The ECB also said in its financial stability report that European governments need to redouble their economic reform efforts. While monetary policy "can support the conditions for economic growth," other policies, such as structural reforms "are needed to underpin sustainable economic growth in the euro area," it said.
"The financial stability situation in Europe has improved," Mr. Constâncio said. "One can say that our policies are working."
In March, the ECB started a broad-based asset-buying program, known as quantitative easing, where it will buy €60 billion a month of mostly government bonds until the end of September 2016 in an effort to prop up inflation.
A report Thursday from the European Commission signaled that so far businesses and consumers in Europe, buoyed by the ECB's stimulus, have shaken off any concerns stemming from Greece.
The Commission's Economic Sentiment Indicator—which aggregates the business and consumer measures—was unchanged at 103.8, its highest level since mid-2011 and well above the average of 100.0 going back to the start of the series in 1990.
Write to Brian Blackstone at firstname.lastname@example.com and Todd Buell at email@example.com
By Alen Mattich
Time is running out for Greece, the signals over a debt deal are mired in confusion, and the European Central Bank is beginning to get worried about risks spreading, but the odds still slightly favor it striking a deal with its creditors.
George Saravelos, one of Deutsche bank's strategists, gives Greece 60% probability to some sort of agreement that avoids capital controls and financial crisis in the coming days. Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategists said even though Greece still presented a "risk to risk-on", and the timing is tight, "we expect an agreement ultimately." Unicredit strategists wrote in a note: "As long as political negotiations to keep Greece solvent continue, the ECB should not, and will not, pull the plug on [Emergency Liquidity Assistance]."
Greece has nearly €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in four payments due to the International Monetary Fund during June, starting with €306 million on June 5. Greek government officials have made it clear the country can't come up with the money from its own resources. Indeed, the only way Greece could make its most recent payment to the IMF was by drawing on special reserves it had at the IMF.
In other words, to pay the IMF, Greece needs to be able to tap its creditors for previously promised funds. But these funds are only available if Greece sticks to prior austerity agreements.
Current negotiations are over quite how far its trio of international creditors–the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank–might be willing to relent on what the Syriza government considers to be onerous conditions.
Mr. Saravelos figures there are three main sticking points:
1) Revenue targets. The European Commission figures Greece will fall €1.8 billion short of its budget target for the year. The Greek government proposes to close €500 million of this gap with value added tax increases and not much else. The institutions want more.
2) Pension reform. The Greek government wants to suspend rules that mean pensions are automatically cut if the pension system generates a shortfall. Its creditors want to ensure the pension system remains self funding, for fear of pensions deficits will rapidly blow out.
3) Labor market reforms. Syriza wants to go back to collective wage bargaining and to increase the minimum wage. The IMF, in particular, not only doesn't want this sort of backtracking, but is looking for even broader liberalization for the labor market.
Even if a deal is struck on these main points, the Syriza government may run out of time. Its creditors will insist that any agreement is passed by the Greek parliament or, if Syriza fails to drum up a sufficient majority that would have to include opposition parties, through a referendum.
In which case Greece would default on the IMF debt.
But this need not be a disaster as long as the ECB stays on side. While an IMF default could trigger a cascade of defaults–other loans made to Greece could then be called in, according to the terms under which they were made–the critical factor is the degree to which the ECB would be willing to continue funding Greek banks.
As depositors lose faith in the Greek banking sector, for fear of having their money trapped in the country by capital controls in the case of a disaster, the ECB has been making up the shortfall through its emergency liquidity assistance. As long as the ELA is flowing, default is just a political issue. And if the ECB saw that a deal had been done–even if not yet ratified–it might well be willing to continue the funding. What's more, it could even relent on allowing Greece to issue more short-term debt in the form of treasury bills to pay off its IMF obligations.
But whatever happens in the coming days, it's unlikely Greece will come out with the long run deal it needs. Expect more fraught negotiations.
Good Morning. Every year, CIO Journal Columnist Thomas H. Davenport asks his MBA students if they aspire to be CIOs. For the past several years, not one has raised a hand. "I may sound like a dinosaur, but I can remember when there was no better job in the world of information technology," he writes in CIO Journal. What happened?
IRS data breach draws Capitol Hill scrutiny. Lawmakers are stepping up their scrutiny of computer security at the Internal Revenue Service, the Journal's John D. McKinnon reports. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, on Wednesday asked for a private briefing from the IRS concerning the theft of prior-year tax return information. A Ways and Means Committee oversight panel also is probing the theft, examining whether it is related to IRS computer-security weaknesses that have previously been identified by the agency's inspector general. Refund-fraud schemes have grown significantly over the last five years. The federal government lost at least $5.8 billion to the scams in 2013.
The nine slides that matter from Mary Meeker's State of the Internet. The famous venture capitalist offered her latest take on technology trends Wednesday morning, Bloomberg reports. Among her insights: technology is entrenched in the U.S., but still holds great growth opportunities; Advertisers are still wasting money on print; Physical retail is in grave danger; Regulators have not yet wrecked the growing boom in consumer drones.
Technology replaces schmoozing: the future of private banking. Swiss private bankers are turning to video games and virtual reality to attract a new generation of skeptical clients and see off digital rivals, Reuters reports. Researchers at UBS AG are testing technologies to see what could make the world's biggest wealth manager more appealing. In addition to games, the technologies include biometric logons and VR simulations to help clients visualize complex investment portfolios.
Apple eyes car as "ultimate mobile device." When asked what Apple Inc. plans to do with its enormous cash pile, the company's senior vice president of operations, Jeff Williams, replied that the company explores "all kinds of categories" and said "the car is the ultimate mobile device, isn't it?" The Financial Times reports that he went on to clarify that Apple already offers CarPlay, a system that integrates an iPhone with a car's dashboard, but his comments follow reports that Apple has a secret team of automotive engineers and designers working on an electric vehicle.
Facebook's Oculus snaps up advanced virtual reality startup. Facebook's virtual reality group Oculus VR has acquired Surreal Vision, maker of technology that allows users to mingle with the real world. The founders, who will join Facebook, have doctorates in computer vision, the discipline of giving computers the ability to analyze and reconstruct the world as quickly and easily as the human eye — if not better, the Journal's Deepa Seetharaman explains.
Google's search for platforms on display. Google this week will make a renewed push for developers to work with Android for wearable devices, Internet-connected TVs, cars and virtual reality at its I/O conference, the WSJ's Alistair Barr reports. Google needs "more traction" with developers in areas beyond phones and tablets, said Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie. "The last platform transition from PCs to phones enabled Apple to become the largest company on the planet. Who is going to benefit the most from the next one?"
Jawbone sues Fitbit over data''plundering' by ex-employees. Wearable maker Jawbone is suing rival Fitbit in California State Court, accusing it of stealing intellectual property, the New York Times reports. The complaint says that Fitbit actively recruited Jawbone employees, some of whom used thumb drives to download confidential files before leaving. Jawbone said the employees used programs to cover their tracks. Earlier this month Fitbit filed for an initial public offering.
Google wages free-speech fight in Mexico. A ruling against Google Mexico opens the door for politicians and business moguls to abuse the so-called right to be forgotten, free-speech advocates say. The WSJ's Laurence Iliff reports that the Google unit and digital-rights activists are aiming to overturn a recent ruling by Mexico's Federal Institute for the Access to Information, which in January came down on the side of a transportation scion who wants three links removed that contain negative comments about his family's business dealings.
Silicon Valley races to make TV the next frontier for apps. After many misfires, Silicon Valley is once again betting it can transform television—this time by letting TVs run apps as diverse as those on smartphones, the WSJ reports. Google and Apple are urging software developers to show the kind of creativity on the big screen that they have on smartphones. The effort revolves around new set-top boxes and TV sets, which the technology companies are positioning as platforms for all manner of interactive experiences in addition to conventional television programming.
Computers push stock trading to the end of the day. The middle of the day has become awfully quiet on the U.S. stock market, as index funds and computer models push the action, the WSJ's Dan Strumpf reports. The rising use of index funds, which generally prefer to trade at the close, is contributing to the shift. So are the scores of computer models sniffing out the best times to trade, when they have the greatest chance of matching up without driving the price higher or lower.
Tax ID theft victims cite woes with IRS. When criminals file fraudulent returns, taxpayers say they have to wade through red tape and wait months longer for refunds, the WSJ's Laura Saunders reports. Tax ID theft occurs when criminals steal personal information and use it to claim a tax refund in a taxpayer's name before he or she files. Many refunds are put on debit cards that can be hard to trace, experts say. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said the agency assisted 875,000 victims of tax ID theft in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.
Broadcom to be acquired. Avago Technologies Ltd., which designs and develops chips for wireless communications and enterprise storage, will acquire mobile chipmaker Broadcom Corp., the WSJ reports. Talks come as the semiconductor sector continues to consolidate. Intel Corp. is in talks to buy Altera Corp., while NXP Semiconductors NV agreed to buy Freescale Semiconductor Ltd. in March. Broadcom, its executives admit, has prospered largely by exploiting technologies, not inventing them. Nevertheless it counts Amazon.com Inc., Apple and DirecTV as customers and makes chips for half the world's tablets and smartphones.
Samsung moves raise governance concerns. Samsung Group's maneuvers to increase heir apparent Jay Y. Lee's stake in Samsung Electronics Co. illustrate issues that critics say continue to plague South Korea, the WSJ reports. Signs of discontent can be seen in the reaction of domestic watchdog groups. "We know that this is all about succession," says Kim Sang-jo, an economics professor at Hansung University and director for Solidarity for Economic Reform, a vocal civic group tracking South Korea's conglomerates.
'404 error' Web pages are early battleground in 2016 races. Presidential candidates are applying their crack IT efforts to the 404 page, a webpage address last funny when Sergey and Larry were still wearing short pants. But don't tell Rick Santorum, Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio, who are using the page to crack wise, the WSJ's Natalie Andrews reports. If there is any originality, it belongs to Carly Fiorina's 404 page, which her campaign uses to solicit donations.
McDonald's to stop reporting monthly sales data. McDonald Corp. CEO Steve Easterbrook said his turnaround plan will hinge on many small things, and the company plans to stop disclosing monthly sales figures beginning July 1. The company has been struggling in its critical U.S. market, where Mr. Easterbrook said it has failed to keep pace with shifting consumer tastes.
Corruption allegations reach into soccer's highest levels. Prosecutors alleged that senior officials of FIFA got more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks as part of a sprawling scheme that functioned like a criminal enterprise.
U.S. seeks details on top China official amid bank-hiring probe. The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking information about a Chinese anticorruption official in connection with its probe of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s hiring of relatives of Chinese government officials. Authorities are carrying out a criminal investigation into J.P. Morgan and other banks regarding a law that bans companies from bribing foreign government officials. Regulators aren't investigating the Chinese officials themselves.
The Morning Download comes from the editors of CIO Journal and cues up the most important news in business technology every weekday morning. Send us your tips, compliments and complaints. You can get The Morning Download emailed to you each weekday morning by clicking http://on.wsj.com/TheMorningDownloadSignup.
By Nektaria Stamouli
ATHENS—Officials in Athens suggested that talks with Greece's creditors over fresh bailout funds had reached a final stage, though European Union officials said negotiators still had much work to do before sealing a deal.
Teams from Greece and its international creditors resumed talks in Brussels on Wednesday in a bid to overcome an impasse in their negotiations as Athens runs dangerously low on cash. The latest round began as U.S. Treasury chief Jacob Lew urged both sides to "double down" in their efforts to reach a deal to solve the country's debt crisis, saying it would be wrong to assume that a disorderly Greek exit would be painless.
"No one should have a false sense of confidence that they know what the risk of a crisis in Greece would be," Mr. Lew said in an address to students at the London School of Economics.
The U.S. Treasury Department later said that Mr. Lew spoke Wednesday to the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras by phone. "Secretary Lew reiterated that failure to agree on a path forward would create immediate hardship for Greece and broad uncertainties for Europe and the global economy," a Treasury spokeswoman said.
Mr. Tsipras told reporters after a meeting at the Finance Ministry on Wednesday that the two sides were close to an agreement. A senior Greek government official, meanwhile, said Greece and its creditors would start drafting a final list of overhauls and budget cuts that Athens needs to implement to secure fresh bailout funds.
But Valdis Dombrovskis, vice president of the European Commission, played down hopes of a resolution soon, saying Greece and its creditors were still some way from a deal.
"There needs to be a comprehensive reform package presented by the Greek government in order to successfully complete the review," Mr. Dombrovskis told reporters.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also said that no progress in substance has been made."We always hear positive news coming out of Greece, which is good. However, we haven't gotten much further in substance in the negotiations between the three institutions and the Greek government," he said on German television. "That's why I am always a bit surprise that people in Athens always say we are close to reach an agreement."
The negotiations between the negotiating teams in Brussels are expected to continue to the end of the week and talks between eurozone finance ministry officials are scheduled for Thursday.
Greece is under pressure to agree to economic overhauls with its creditors to unlock new financing. Athens is believed to have enough cash left to repay a loan of €300 million ($330 million) to the International Monetary Fund on June 5, but likely won't have enough to cover three further repayments due mid-June.
The government has been holding stop-start negotiations with its creditors for weeks, but there is still dissatisfaction with Greece's promises on economic reforms. Significant differences remain on pensions, privatization, labor law and fiscal austerity.
According to the Greek official, there is still disagreement between European institutions and the IMF, adding that if approval by the IMF wasn't necessary, "the deal would have closed by now."
The official said that while the commission and the European Central Bank want a deal by the end of the month, IMF officials insist that there should be a comprehensive agreement on a list of economic overhauls and not a "quick and-dirty" deal.
But EU officials have also insisted that a comprehensive policy package is key to securing a deal, which would allow financing to flow, initially in the form of a permission by the ECB for Greece to sell more short-term debt to its banks. Without an agreement, Greece's creditors won't be able to unlock any further aid disbursements, officials say.
Mr. Tsipras said that the country's deposits weren't at risk and that wages and pensions would be paid normally.
"We have to deal with three different institutions that sometimes have contradictory views," the Greek premier said.
Greece's central bank didn't request an increase to the amount Greek banks can borrow under the ECB's emergency lending program, two people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
"There hasn't been any raise, since there is an unused liquidity buffer of 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) and deposit outflows have stabilized," a Greek bank official said.
–Jason Douglas, Andrea Thomas and Matthew Dalton contributed to this article.
Write to Nektaria Stamouli at email@example.com
By Kim S. Nash
A three-year IT overhaul now lets the World Bank break down and rebuild IT faster and safer in war zones and natural disasters. The bank's mission to alleviate poverty through financing and other programs to stabilize local economies means it works in some of the most remote and undeveloped areas of the world — 220 offices in 186 countries. Since Ms. von Friedeburg took over as CIO in 2012, the bank has installed faster and more redundant Internet connections, decreased reliance on satellite communications, swapped out desktops for laptops and mobile devices and moved key applications and data to the cloud. The result is a more agile tech infrastructure designed to be broken down and resurrected quickly amid dangerous conditions.
Before, when offices were evacuated, staff members physically carried servers out of the building, to plug in and reconfigure in a safer location. Many offices relied solely on satellite for connectivity and had no backup. That included the bank's location in Burundi, a central African nation that fell into chaos after a military coup May 13.
Ms. von Friedeburg's group had spent the prior two years revamping technology there, to allow a quick escape. When the World Bank, with other United Nations agencies, agreed to clear out of Burundi a few days later, office staff wiped their servers, packed their mobile technology and boarded chartered flights from capital Bujumbura to Nairobi, Kenya. There, they set up shop, accessing e-mail via Microsoft Corp.'s Office 365 cloud and data stored in Box Inc.'s cloud.
Computing in the cloud is more secure, in part because data is stored outside danger zones and staff members don't have to move hardware in bags and boxes, Ms. von Friedeburg said. "Eventually, we'll get back in and I assume they'll be there. But they might not be," she said. "But because we wiped them, I'm not worried."
By Andrea Thomas
DRESDEN, Germany—Germany sees no imminent deal between Greece and its international lenders, a German government official said Wednesday, reducing hopes for a resolution of the Athens funding crisis that has rattled markets in recent days.
The comments came after a senior Greek government official said earlier Wednesday that Greece and its creditors will start drafting the final list of policy overhauls and budget cuts the government has to implement in return for fresh bailout funds.
But Germany, one of the creditors holding a tough stance against Athens, was less optimistic.
"We always hear positive news coming out of Greece, which is good. However, we haven't gotten much further in substance in the negotiations between the three institutions and the Greek government," Mr. Schaeuble said on German public broadcaster ARD. "That's why I am always a bit surprised that people in Athens always say we are close to reach an agreement."
"We haven't made much progress in substance," a German official, who declined to be identified, said earlier at the sidelines of the meeting of top financial officials from the Group of Seven nations that started Wednesday in Dresden.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said earlier that Greece is close to an agreement.
Greece isn't an official topic at the G-7 meeting, but the deadlock in the talks to find a resolution to the crisis and secure fresh bailout funding from foreign lenders is expected to play a role.
Greece is under pressure to strike a deal with its international creditors, the European institutions and the International Monetary Fund, as it is due to repay €300 million ($330 million) to the IMF on June 5 and has three further payments due to the IMF by the middle of the month totaling about €1.25 billion. Concern over Greece's ability to repay its debts and the risk of a possible default have rattled European stock markets and pushed the euro lower earlier this week.
–Nektaria Stamouli in Athens contributed to this article.
Write to Andrea Thomas at email@example.com
By Jason Douglas
LONDON—U.S. Treasury chief Jacob Lew on Wednesday urged Greece and its creditors to "double down" in their efforts to reach a deal to solve the nation's debt crisis, saying no one should be complacent about the risks to the world economy from a Greek default and possible exit from the eurozone.
Addressing students in London before traveling to a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations in Germany, Mr. Lew said that although eurozone is in "a more stable place" than it was at the height of the currency union's debt crisis in 2012, it would be wrong to assume that a disorderly Greek exit would be painless.
"No one should have a false sense of confidence that they know what the risk of a crisis in Greece would be," he said at the London School of Economics.
The treasury said later that Mr. Lew spoke Wednesday to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras by phone. "Secretary Lew reiterated that failure to agree on a path forward would create immediate hardship for Greece and broad uncertainties for Europe and the global economy," a Treasury spokeswoman said in a statement.
Greece is under time pressure to agree on economic overhauls with its creditors—the rest of the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund—to unlock fresh financing before it defaults on its debts to the IMF.
The Athens government is believed to have enough cash leftto meet a €300 million ($330 million) IMF loan repayment on June 5, but probably can't cover three further IMF repayments in mid-June.
Athens has been holding stop-start negotiations with eurozone and IMF officials in Brussels for weeks, but creditors are still not satisfied with Greece's promises on economic reforms. Significant differences remain on pensions, privatization, labor law, and fiscal austerity.
A senior European Commission official said Wednesday that technical negotiations between Greece and its creditors have shown some progress though he warned that time is running out to reach a final agreement.
"There are a number of areas we are making some progress on," said Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice President at the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, citing Greek proposals on VAT, a sales tax.
"It is also clear that we need to reach this deal very quickly because we are already a month behind the original schedule," he added. A deal reached in February to extend Greece's bailout by four months suggested that technical discussions between Greece and the institutions should be completed by the end of April.
In London, Mr. Lew acknowledged Greece's left-wing governmentneeds to take some difficult decisions.
"There is certainly a need for Greece to come up with a program that is credible," he said. But he added that Greece's creditors need to be "flexible" if they are to secure a deal.
Beyond the short-term deal that is needed in June to avoid default this summer, Greece and its lenders must also negotiate a fresh bailout program to keep the country afloat for as long as Greece can't finance itself on bond markets.
The U.S. Treasury secretary said that Greece and its creditors are at risk of stumbling into another crisis if they don't focus on finding a workable solution to the nation's problems.
"What I worry about most is an accident," Mr. Lew said. "Everyone needs to double down and treat the next move as the last."
Meanwhile, Greece's central bank hasn't requested an increase to the amount of money Greek banks can borrow under an emergency lending program by the European Central Bank, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Under the emergency-liquidity assistance program, or ELA, the Greek central bank lends money to its country's financial institutions. The loans carry a higher interest rate than standard ECB loans, and the credit risk stays with Greece.
Greek banks were forced into ELA in February after the ECB suspended an exemption that had allowed banks to use junk-rated Greek government bonds as collateral for regular ECB loans. Since then, the Greek central bank has lent some €80.2 billion to Greek lenders.
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IMF Official Says Chinese Yuan No Longer Undervalued. China's currency is no longer undervalued, International Monetary Fund First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton said Tuesday. Speaking to reporters in Beijing, he said China should make rapid progress toward greater exchange rate flexibility and aim to achieve a floating exchange-rate system within two to three years.
G-7 Finance Officials to Discuss Loose Monetary Policy Risks. Financial chiefs from the Group of Seven nations will discuss policies to achieve sustainable economic growth and fight potential risks from the present loose monetary policy, a German official said Tuesday. "We want to discuss debt, we want to discuss investment, we want to discuss growth," said the official during a briefing on the G-7 meeting of finance ministers and central bank heads due to begin in Dresden on Wednesday. Germany holds the G-7 presidency this year.
Bank of Mexico's Carstens: Recent Peso Depreciation "Overreaction" to Future Fed Hike. Expectations that the Fed will raise interest rates soon has hurt currencies across emerging markets from the Indian rupee to the Brazilian real. But for Mexico's central bank chief Agustin Carstens, the sell-off in the peso is overdone. "I think there has been an overreaction in the market," said the Bank of Mexico governor in an interview with the Journal.
Bank of Israel Leaves Policy on Hold. Israel's central bank left its benchmark interest rate for June unchanged at its record low level of 0.1%, where it has been since March. The central bank said monthly increases in inflation in march and April erased the need for further rate cuts, even though annual inflation remained negative in April.—Dow Jones Newswires.
Presidential candidates are not talking about the lessons to be drawn from the last recession and how to avoid the next. A stretch of gloomy economic news, deeper and more prolonged than the one we've had lately, might change that. For now, most of the 2016 economic chatter has focused on reviving economic mobility, reducing poverty, buttressing the middle class and combating yawning income inequality. Less attention is being paid, on the campaign trail anyway, to worries that something is askew in the U.S. economy that is keeping growth from topping 3%, as it did during each of the three previous recoveries.
-1630 GMT (12:30 p.m. EDT): Fed's Fischer speaks on the Federal Reserve and the global economy in Tel Aviv, Israel
-7:10 p.m. EDT: Richmond Fed's Lacker speaks on financial stability in Baton Rouge, La.
-ECB's Hansson speaks in the Estonian parliament
-National Bank of Hungary releases a policy statement
-Bank of Japan releases minutes of its April 30 policy meeting
-0130 GMT (9:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday): BOJ's Iwata speaks in Sapporo, Japan
-10 a.m. EDT: Bank of Canada releases a policy statement
-0900 GMT (5 a.m. EDT): ECB's Nowotny speaks in Vienna, Austria
-2:20 a.m. EDT: San Francisco Fed's Williams speaks in Singapore
-2:45 p.m. EDT: Minneapolis Fed's Kocherlakota speaks on monetary policy in Helena, Mont.
-1000 GMT (6 a.m. EDT): ECB's Mersch speaks in Sofia, Bulgaria
-1045 GMT (6:45 a.m. EDT): ECB's Weidmann and Germany's Schaeuble speak in Dresden, Germany
-Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago releases a policy statement
-ECB's Constancio and Linde speak in Barcelona, Spain
How does Canada Avoid Banking Panics? In a presentation this month for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Columbia University economist Charles Calomiris explained why the United States has suffered 12 financial crises since 1840 while Canada has suffered none, even though banking constitutes a larger share of Canada's economy. He concludes that the U.S. unit banking system, which encourages smaller banks, is partly to blame, as are regulatory policies in the U.S. such as deposit insurance that have made banks and their customers "overconfident." So what's behind the U.S. model? "The answers lie in the political institutions and special interests that developed and gained influence in our country over history," according to a summary provided by the Atlanta Fed.
How does Reducing Inequality Help Growth? The Journal's Greg Ip takes a look at a new study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that suggests that governments can increase growth by implementing policies that close the income gap. "It's an intriguing finding, but one with a caveat. The study is better at showing that inequality hurts growth than at explaining why. That means policy makers who want to use taxes and social spending to close the income gap cannot assume they'll help the economy in the process."
How Credit Ratings Agencies React. Carmen Broto and Luis Molina, both economists and the Bank of Spain, question ratings agencies in a post on Voxeu. "Credit ratings agencies overreact in downgrading countries credit ratings during times of economic crisis and instability and underreact when upgrading during calmer times," they write. "This is bad news for policymakers who think that strong economic performance will get them back the credit rating they once took for granted."
U.S. consumer prices rose for the third straight month in April. The consumer-price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in April from a month earlier, the Labor Department said Friday. Excluding volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices climbed 0.3%, the largest increase since January 2013.
Energy Prices and the Dollar Can Affect Core Inflation. Although excluded from core inflation, energy prices have played a role in keeping it muted by lowering manufacturing and shipping costs.
Tweaks Could Make First-Quarter Growth Look Better. The Commerce Department said Friday said it is planning a series of steps to smooth out statistical quirks that may be affecting quarterly gross domestic product data. The move could make first (and fourth) quarters of the year a little less bad and the rest of the year a little less good.
Former Rep. Ron Paul is warning in television commercials of a calamitous U.S. financial crisis "infinitely worse than the crisis of 2008" that could bring civil unrest and a stock market collapse.
Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer said Tuesday French banks would not be at risk if Greece exited the eurozone. A few years ago, the risks for French banks would have been greater because of their exposure to interbank lending and Greece's sovereign debt, said Mr. Noyer, who is also a member of the European Central Bank's governing council.
Peru central bank president Julio Velarde says the monetary authority will maintain its expansionary monetary policy but he adds the central bank won't hesitate to increase interest rates if inflation picks up. – Dow Jones Newswires.
Africa's fitful and uneven economic growth will gain momentum this year and next, three prominent organizations said in a joint report released on Monday.
Economic growth in developed countries slowed for the second straight quarter in early 2015, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said, as the recovery from the financial crisis remained weak and uneven.
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Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius argues growth and productivity statistics have been understated, and inflation overstated. An earlier version of the newsletter incorrectly said he argues inflation had been understated. (May 26, 2015)
By Mark Magnier, William Kazer
BEIJING—China's currency is no longer undervalued given recent appreciation, but the government should pick up the pace in loosening controls on the exchange rate, a senior International Monetary Fund official said Tuesday.
Speaking at the conclusion of an annual review of the Chinese economy, IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton said along with the exchange rate, China should further address economic imbalances, promoting consumption and reducing reliance on investment-fueled growth.
Reforming the exchange rate is part of that process, Mr. Lipton said, urging Beijing to make rapid progress toward a more flexible exchange rate, moving beyond the narrow trading band currently used against the U.S. dollar.
Mr. Lipton said the currency, the yuan, had appreciated against most other currencies in recent months, helping China to reduce its "very large" current- account surplus and slow its accumulation of foreign reserves. Those were all signs that the yuan is no longer undervalued, he said. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the IMF was on the verge of making such a declaration after years of criticism of Beijing's management of the currency. The U.S. has also complained for years that Beijing has kept the yuan undervalued, giving China's exporters an unfair price advantage.
Mr. Lipton said the aim should be a floating exchange rate within two to three years, and that such a move would help the government manage the economy and weather expected continued upward pressure on the yuan as productivity improves.
"We urge the authorities to make rapid progress toward greater exchange-rate flexibility, a key requirement for a large economy like China's that strives for market-based pricing and is integrating rapidly in global financial markets," he said.
The IMF review comes as the Chinese economy is decelerating—some analysts say more rapidly than projected—and as the government tries to balance between moves to boost short-term growth and longer-term structural reforms. Among those are piecemeal efforts to promote wider global use of the currency, with an aim to get the yuan included in the IMF's basket of reserve assets, known as Special Drawing Rights.
The IMF welcomes China's bid to have the yuan included in the SDR basket, Mr. Lipton said. The IMF is expected to make an evaluation of the composition of the SDR this year.
While all of the SDR currencies are freely convertible, the yuan isn't. The IMF's criteria are less definite, requiring that a currency be "freely usable." Given that, the U.S. and other major IMF shareholders have significant discretion on whether or not to include the yuan this year, some economists said. "It's not straightforward from the technical aspect, it's more political now," said Standard Chartered economist Shuang Ding. "A lot depends on Washington."
Mr. Lipton said that China should step up fiscal spending if economic growth slips below 6.5%, although the IMF still projects growth of 6.8% this year. The government target is for 7% annual growth—the pace the economy hit in the first quarter, its slowest year-over-year rate in six years.
China has moved too slowly on its program to reform state companies, Mr. Lipton said, adding that Beijing needs to level the playing field between the public and private sectors.
China also needs to address mounting debt levels, Mr. Lipton said, and moves to stimulate the economy should be done in ways that support reform.
In recent months, as the economy has slowed, Beijing has cut interest rates and encouraged banks to lend more by reducing the amount of reserves they are required to hold with the central bank. It has also signaled to local governments that they can ease up on efforts to pare debts. Those moves, some economists said, show that Beijing is tilting in favor of growth at the expense of structural reforms such as the deleveraging of high levels of debt.
The IMF's call on Beijing to push ahead on reforms despite slowing economic growth is likely to be at least partially disregarded by Chinese leaders, some economists said. "Beijing of course won't listen. They're bound by their 7% annual growth target, a political goal, which is much more important than the opinion of the IMF," said Crédit Agricole CIB economist Dariusz Kowalczyk. He said that the growth target and generating employment remain paramount.
Write to Mark Magnier at firstname.lastname@example.com and William Kazer at email@example.com
By Nektaria Stamouli
ATHENS—The Greek government has the responsibility to repay its obligations both internally and to its international creditors, but a deal with its international creditors is needed as quick as possible, a government spokesman said Monday.
"There is a compelling need for Greece and it is international creditors to reach a deal," Gabriel Sakellaridis told reporters. He added that the government aims to have a deal by the beginning of June.
"To the point we are in the position to pay our obligations, we will pay our obligations. It's the government's responsibility to be in a position to pay its obligations."
His comments come after Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis said Sunday that the government won't have the money it is due to repay to the International Monetary Fund next month unless it strikes a deal with international creditors over further rescue funding.
Mr. Voutsis told privately owned television station Mega that Greece is scheduled to repay €1.6 billion ($1.76 billion) to the IMF between June 5-19, but the payments cannot be met. "This money won't be given," he said. "It doesn't exist."
Mr. Sakellaridis, the spokesman, said the government isn't considering bundling all the payments the government has to make to the IMF in one payment at the end of the month.
He added that this option hasn't been proposed by the any of the institutions overseeing the country's austerity program.
Despite months of negotiations between Greece's leftist-led government and creditors—the European Union and the IMF—over the country's bailout, little progress has been made.
The government spokesman said that any speculation about capital controls being imposed to Greek banks is "irresponsible."
This possibility simply does not exist," he said.
A delegation of Greek officials is expected to resume negotiations in Brussels Tuesday with the heads of the institutions overseeing the country's aid program.
By Ian Talley
As Greece roots around for cash to cover upcoming bills amid stalled bailout talks, one option it could consider is bundling next month's payments to the International Monetary Fund.
The Greek leadership, at this point, doesn't appear to be considering the option and doesn't see it as advantageous given concerns about the signals it could send, according to people familiar with the government's thinking.
Obscure IMF rules allow Greece to clump its principal payments into one deposit that the government could ostensibly pay later in the month, without falling into arrears. Athens owes the IMF four principal payments totaling $1.7 billion in June. Should Greece seek to take advantage of the opportunity, bundling its IMF payments would buy Greece's government more time for negotiations in the deadlocked bailout talks.
An IMF spokeswoman declined to say whether Greece had made such a request or even inquired about the option.
Bundling payments would remove the short-term funding threat Athens has tried to use to gain concessions from Europe, says Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
Mr. Kirkegaard says Greece would likely be able to pay most of the bills due to the IMF next month even though it would mean depleting any remaining cash reserves stashed around the country.
"It would buy Athens more time," he said, perhaps giving Greek President Alexis Tsipras more political cover to cut a bailout deal, "saying he fought to the bitter end."
But prolonging the period of economic uncertainty without a bailout deal also could very well aggravate Greece's crisis and deepen the amount of bailout financing needed to fill the country's funding gap and require more costly economic overhauls and budget belt-tightening.
"And it doesn't change the fact that the real deadline remains the big payments due to the ECB," Kirkegaard said.
It also could fuel investor fears that Greece will default on its debt before a bailout deal is reached.
The potential costs mean that, unlike the creative way Athens paid its last IMF bill, the government may decide to leave this option on the shelf.
Related reading:
Greece and Creditors Scramble for Elusive Deal
Shell Game? How Greece's Latest IMF Repayment Cost Athens Very Little
By WSJ Staff
Your daily roundup of news from The Wall Street Journal related to Japan:
U.S. Fast-Track Vote Bolsters Talks on Pacific Trade Pact: The U.S. Senate's passage of fast-track legislation has injected fresh momentum into talks on a landmark Pacific trade deal, with negotiators saying they are in the final stages of discussions after more than five years of wrangling.
IMF Says Bank of Japan Should Stand Ready for More Easing: The Bank of Japan should stand ready to implement further easing to achieve its elusive inflation goal, the International Monetary Fund said, even as positive economic data and a rallying stock market have generated cautious optimism among Japanese policy makers.
U.S. Mutual Fund Becomes Top Nintendo Shareholder: An American mutual-fund company has become the largest shareholder in Nintendo Co., placing a growing bet on signs of a revival in the Japanese videogame company's fortunes, a regulatory filing shows.
Maria Sharapova on the Loves of Her (Traveling) Life: Preparing to defend her French Open title, the tennis champ holds forth on her favorite hotels, great carry-ons and the joys of getting lost in Tokyo.
By Stelios Bouras
ATHENS—Greece said Sunday that it won't have the money it is due to repay to the International Monetary Fund next month unless it strikes a deal with international creditors over further rescue funding.
Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis told privately owned television station Mega that Greece is scheduled to repay €1.6 billion ($1.76 billion) to the IMF between June 5-19, but the payments cannot be met.
"This money will not be given," he said. "It does not exist."
The ruling Syriza party, elected on an antiausterity ticket in January, opposes reforms to the labor market and pension system demanded by international creditors that argue that Greece must complete these economic overhauls to achieve sustainable growth and solvency.
A default on Greece's obligations to the IMF could spark heavy deposit withdrawals from Greek banks and force capital controls, deepening the country's economic crisis, economists say.
Talks are continuing between the two sides in Brussels, though hopes have been dashed that a recent reshuffle of Greece's renegotiating team will accelerate a deal.
The reshuffle effectively sidelined Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, whose combative style has alienated many European officials. In his latest comments, Mr. Varoufakis told the New York Times Magazine last week that he had secretly taped negotiations with his European peers in April, a breach of etiquette that raised eyebrows around Europe.
On Sunday, Mr. Varoufakis said that he often records his interventions and comments on his mobile phone to better brief Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Greek cabinet, as was the case at the April meeting in Riga, Latvia. Mr. Varoufakis added that despite the press incorrectly reporting that he was insulted by his peers at the Latvia meeting and that he had lost his temper, he refused to leak any recording to the press that would have set the record straight.
"Perhaps we should query European institutions in which decisions of monumental importance are made, on behalf of Europe's citizenry, but in which minutes are neither taken nor published," he wrote on his personal blog.
"Secrecy and a gullible press do not augur well for Europe's democracy," he added.
Write to Stelios Bouras at firstname.lastname@example.com
Would sanctioning currency manipulators really put U.S. monetary policy at risk?
Maybe. Maybe not.
The risk that tough anti-manipulation measures could impede Federal Reserve policies is one of the main arguments the Obama administration is using to warn lawmakers against including binding penalties against countries that devalue their exchange rates in key trade legislation.
Lawmakers pushing for tough rules inside a trade bill say the argument is erroneous.
"Those who oppose currency disciplines continue to raise this false argument," Rep. Sander Levin, (D., Mich.), the ranking member on the House committee responsible for trade policy and a chief advocate for tougher currency sanctions, said in a speech Thursday.
The White House warned this week President Barack Obama would veto fast-track legislation if it contained measures that would penalize countries for devaluing their currencies. The administration says such measures would kill the years-long effort to seal the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal, a pillar of the president's plan to boost the U.S. economy and fortify economic and strategic ties in Asia.
Central to the administration's argument is a claim that those measures could constrain legitimate monetary policy such as the Fed's easy-money stimulus in the wake of the financial crisis.
It would "put our domestic macroeconomic policies in the hands of uninformed arbitrators without appropriate expertise and confuse our already successful engagement in the G-20, the G-7, the IMF, and bilaterally," Treasury told lawmakers in a letter this week. (See the administration's full argument here.)
Simon Johnson, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said the administration is mischaracterizing the effort. "The language …very clearly says that we want to discourage or prevent large-scale, protracted intervention in the exchange market."
"It is important that [the bill] doesn't get in the way of monetary policy, but there is absolutely nothing on the table…that I've seen that would impede monetary policy," Mr. Johnson said.
Every living U.S. Treasury secretary and more than a dozen former chairmen of the president's Council of Economic Advisers from both sides of the political aisle have cautioned against sanctions in trade legislation.
"While the desirability of including currency manipulation in trade agreements can be debated, as a practical matter, it is impossible to get agreement on provisions that subject currency manipulation to trade sanctions in a manner that both the United States and other countries would find acceptable," the former Treasury secretaries said.
Even Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said currency sanctions in trade agreements could "hamper or hobble" monetary policy.
Lawmakers specifically sought to address those concerns by clearly distinguishing between healthy monetary policy and direct intervention in currency markets.
Underscoring that concern, lawmakers added language in their legislation stating that nothing in the measure "shall be construed to restrict the exercise of domestic monetary policy."
Mr. Levin argues that the IMF, the world's chief arbiter of exchange-rate policies, differentiates between exchange-rate manipulation and the currency-depreciating side effects of legitimate monetary policy. So too would the World Trade Organization, the institution where U.S. companies would be able to seek remedy for damages from currency manipulation under Mr. Levin's proposal, he argues.
The administration, of course, disagrees. "While [the legislation] tries to exclude from the objective potential impacts on our macroeconomic policies, we cannot imagine a scenario in which our negotiating partners would not seek to negotiate tools to be able to target and challenge our policies just as we are trying to address their unfair currency practices," Treasury told lawmakers in its letter. "Moreover, there can be subjectivity in interpreting the orientation of macroeconomic policies."
Without any legal precedent at the WTO, it's unclear how the trade arbitration body would rule in such a case and whether it would, in fact, differentiate. The administration doesn't want to find out. Currency evaluations have long proved elusive.
Ultimately, that may not really be the point. TPP-negotiating countries have said they won't sign a pact that includes enforceable sanctions.
"The reality is that the countries that we've talked to in the TPP have said they don't want anything enforceable, and if we were to do something enforceable, it would have to also apply to the U.S.," said an Obama administration official familiar with the talks. TPP-negotiating countries such as Singapore and Peru are also worried that their monetary policies intended to ensure financial stability could be construed as competitive devaluations, the person said.
That's why including binding currency provisions "would serve as a poison pill for TPP negotiations," the Treasury Department said.
That may be by design for some lawmakers who oppose the trade pact. It allows them to appear pro-trade, but effectively block the deal through objections about a legitimate concern.
Obama Presses Currency Compromise in Trade Pact
White House Threatens to Veto Trade Bill Over Currency Measure
Fed's Janet Yellen Opposes Currency Sanctions in Trade Deals
How Much Should a Currency Be Worth? No One Really Knows
By Mitsuru Obe
TOKYO—The Bank of Japan should stand ready to implement further easing to achieve its elusive inflation goal, the International Monetary Fund said Friday, even as positive economic data and a rallying stock market have generated cautious optimism among Japanese policy makers.
In a blunt message, the IMF said that the central bank's radical easing policy so far has failed to bring a "desired regime shift" toward 2% inflation. Instead, it said, prices have been stuck in a 1% range in recent months.
"This suggests that the BOJ needs to stand ready for further easing, provide stronger guidance to markets through enhanced communication, and put greater emphasis on achieving the 2 % inflation target," the IMF said in its annual survey of Japan's economy and policy.
The international agency pointed out that despite improvements in exports and consumption, the recovery in Japan remains "modest," two years after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched a growth policy package aimed at lifting the country out of persistent low growth and deflation. It warned that the greatest risks for the nation's outlook stem from "weak domestic demand and incomplete policies", which could result in "either stagnation or stagflation."
The IMF unveiled the latest issue of the so-called Article IV review days after Tokyo reported a 2.4% economic expansion in annualized terms in the first quarter, raising hopes that the country has put behind last year's recession and is now on its way to a steadier recovery. As Japanese stocks have soared, the total market capitalization of companies listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Friday exceeded the previous record set in 1989. At its policy board meeting Friday, the BOJ kept its policy on hold.
Last month, the IMF projected Japan's growth at 1.0% for this year, and 1.2% for 2016—half the pace of the average for advanced economies. Japan's economy contracted 0.1% last year, the weakest reading in three years.
"Potential growth remains far below what is required to realize the authorities' 'revitalization' scenario," the IMF said.
The deceleration followed an increase in the broad sales tax in April 2014, a step aimed at tackling the country's towering debt. Still, the IMF urged Tokyo to draw up credible fiscal consolidation plans to ensure credibility in markets, and implement further increase in the sales tax.
"Low and stable JGB yields should not be taken for granted as shifts in investor sentiment could happen abruptly," it said.
To lift growth, Tokyo also needs to pursue vigorous structural reforms, the IMF noted.
With its working-age population falling by over one million people every year, the IMF said increasing labor supply is the most pressing task, and urged Japan to do everything it can, including more female labor participation, extension of the retirement age, and acceptance of more foreign workers.
An ineffective banking system is another bottleneck for growth, the IMF said.
"The monetary transmission is weak so that even with further easing, reaching 2 % inflation in a stable manner is likely to take longer than envisaged by the Bank of Japan," the IMF said.
Write to Mitsuru Obe at email@example.com
The World Bank offered up to $11 billion in new loans to President Joko Widodo to fund basic infrastructure projects and improve the quality of Indonesia's workforce. The move sends a signal that the Washington-based lender is pushing back against China's ambitions to finance projects in the region through a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and maintain good relations with one of the region's most vibrant economies. Last month, Mr. Widodo called for a new global economic order that isn't dependent on the World Bank, the IMF and the ADB. And while Indonesia has welcomed loans from the not-yet established AIIB, the World Bank's offer shows that Jakarta remains open to money from a range of sources, money it desperately needs to meet its ambitious infrastructure goals.
Indonesia and Malaysia agreed Wednesday afternoon to provide temporary shelter to thousands of ethnic Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants stranded at sea after their boats were abandoned by human traffickers fleeing a recent crackdown on people smuggling. But, the foreign ministries of those countries said they would only offer shelter provided that the migrants were resettled in another country within a year. Aid agencies and international organizations assisting those people with refugee claims say the year deadline is "optimistic" and will be a huge challenge to meet.
Meanwhile, Myanmar said it would attend a regional meeting aimed at addressing the boat people problem, but it has so far shown little interest in tackling the persecution of the Muslim Rohingya, who make up half the people on the migrant vessels. The predominantly Buddhist country has refused to recognize the Rohingya as citizens and many have been confined to ghetto-like camps and subject to state-sanctioned discrimination. International organizations have called for a regional solution, but say Myanmar's willingness to stop the source of what's driving people onto boats will be vital.
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By Wei Gu
Investors and economists may follow every twist and turn of China's financial overhaul, but Beijing takes the long view. In time, the country's markets and economy will open up.
So the question isn't whether the yuan will be included this year in the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights—a collection of global currencies that forms a special reserve asset—or when exactly the Chinese stock market will join major global indexes. These things are coming. The question is what the long-term impacts will be as investors pour money into China, increasing demand for the Chinese currency for years to come.
Currently, the investment world massively underweights yuan assets. The world's central banks and sovereign-wealth funds have invested an estimated $70 billion to $120 billion in renminbi-denominated assets, according to Standard Chartered—just 0.6% to 1% of world reserves. Foreigners own 1.2% of China's stock market and 2.3% of its bond market, according to the People's Bank of China.
Those are tiny shares, given the size of China's economy and its capital markets. China is the world's second-largest economy, accounting for 12% of the world's economic output. Its onshore bond market is the fourth-largest in the world after those of the U.S., Japan and France. China's stock-market capitalization accounts for 12% of the world's total, according to World Federation of Exchanges, trailing only that of the U.S.
Foreign net purchases of China's bonds and equities this year should reach 500 billion to 700 billion yuan (about $80 billion to $110 billion), according to Standard Chartered. The yuan's inclusion in the IMF's Special Drawing Rights, whenever that occurs, won't force foreigners to buy Chinese assets—but it will confer a sort on blessing of the currency, and so encourage investors to raise their exposure.
If inclusion comes this year, cumulative foreign net purchases of China's bonds and equities could reach 5.5 trillion to 6.2 trillion yuan by 2020, Standard Chartered analysts forecast. Even if inclusion were deferred to 2020, purchases could still reach 3.9 trillion to 4.5 trillion yuan in the next five years. Either way, the trend these analysts see is clear: Within four years, foreigners' holdings of yuan bonds will exceed their current holdings of bonds in any other single emerging market. Standard Chartered expects a persistent rise in global diversification into yuan assets over the next decade.
The incentives are there for fund managers. First, China's three-year treasurys yield around 3.5%, versus 1% for their U.S. counterparts and negative yields for those from Switzerland. China's low government debt means the quality of its sovereign credit is actually higher than that of many countries, including the U.S. Investors could also be drawn to China's roaring stock market, which has doubled in a year—gains that non-Chinese investors have largely missed.
Second, China's capital markets are more liquid now, making them more attractive than those of other emerging economies. Bond trading has grown rapidly, with volume reaching $57 trillion in 2014. The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect is making it easier for foreign investors to buy Chinese shares. At an estimated $40.5 billion, daily spot turnover for onshore and offshore yuan is still much lower than for the major global currencies, but the bid-offer spread is comparable, according to Standard Chartered.
Smaller emerging economies are likely to be losers as global investors put more cash into China. The net $44 billion increase in foreign holdings of Chinese onshore bonds in 2014 alone is equal to 24% of the total local-currency bond market in Indonesia and 40% of the market in the Philippines. The Chinese government's low debt gives it more room to issue bonds for foreigners to buy.
All of this assumes that China's leaders successfully overhaul the economy and keep growth strong. It's no certainty. Already cash is flowing rapidly out of the country. The long-term inflows should more than offset those outflows, but financial or political instability could change that.
What is clearer is that the yuan, which is strictly controlled by China's central bank, is unlikely to rise strongly even if foreign cash flows in. The IMF sees the yuan as close to fairly valued, and the Bank for International Settlements calls the yuan the most overvalued of the world's major currencies, because of China's shrinking trade surplus.
For now, Beijing appears to want a stable currency. Given the economic slowdown, letting the yuan appreciate would make Chinese exports more expensive, a bad move during an economic slowdown. Driving the yuan down could help the economy but would cause howls of protest from China's trading partners.
But that's in the short term. Over time, there's little doubt that lots of foreign cash will flow into Chinese financial assets. The impact on China and the rest of the world will be significant.
Write to Wei Gu at firstname.lastname@example.com
By Patricia Kowsmann
LISBON—-Five months ahead of a general election, the Portuguese government and the main opposition Socialist Party can agree with one thing: the International Monetary Fund no longer has a say here.
Earlier this week, the IMF, which along with the European Union bailed out Portugal in 2011 with a 78 billion euro ($86.6 billion) loan, issued a staff report. Portugal, it wrote, is still far from achieving significant growth levels, having failed to implement all the necessary reforms to make its economy more competitive.
In addition, it warned that while the country's current account has turned positive, a fall in imports—not a rise in exports–has played an important role in fixing external imbalances. And as imports pick up along with the economy, the current account could revert to a deficit.
On Wednesday, Finance Minister Maria Luis Albuquerque largely dismissed the IMF assessment, saying the report "has a very distorted view related to a series of issues."
"The big difference [between now and under the bailout] is that today we can disagree, because we gained that right," Ms. Albuquerque, who oversaw Portugal's exit from the bailout program a year ago, said.
Portugal's vocal opposition to the IMF represents a major U-turn. At least in public, the government spent its bailout years picturing itself as a poster child to the austerity drive in the eurozone.
For its part, the Socialist Party, which is currently slightly ahead in the polls, has called the bailout program, designed by the IMF and the EU and implemented by the government, a mistake.
The party, which released its campaign program Wednesday, said it can keep fiscal targets in check by rebalancing spending and revenue. Ultimately, it believes that raising family incomes will lead to higher consumption and a needed pick-up in the economy.
With that goal, the party has promised to cut taxes, which were sharply raised over the past three years, and reverse the salary cuts in the public sector.
To be sure, the government has also announced a similar plan, albeit to be implemented at a slower pace through 2019. On Wednesday, however, Ms. Albuquerque said income taxes could fall and salaries in the public sector could be raised at a faster pace if the economy grows more quickly.
The government forecasts Portugal will grow 1.6% this year and above 2% after that. The Socialists say the economy can grow even more under their plan. The IMF agrees with the 1.6% this year, but says Portugal's long-term gross domestic product should stay around 1.2% unless the country pushes ahead with more labor and structural reforms to make its exports more competitive.
The advice, however, could have fallen on deaf ears.
Another leading government politician, Economy Minister Antonio Pires de Lima said: "I didn't have the opportunity, and must admit, it isn't under my priorities to read the IMF reports."
By Eric Bellman
India has led the world in bringing power to the people, but still leaves the most people in the dark.
Those are the unlikely findings in a World Bank report this week on how well countries are doing at making their energy usage more efficient and sustainable.
The report, titled "Progress Toward Sustainable Energy: Global Tracking Framework 2015," is part of the World Bank's attempts to better monitor how countries fuel their economies using everything from gas and uranium to wind and wood.
For India, the good news from the report was that in the years between 2010 and 2012 the World Bank estimates 55 million Indians obtained access to electricity for the first time.
That's more new people on the grid than in any other country during that period.
"India is making very rapid progress," said Vivien Foster, an energy sector manager at the World Bank and one of the authors of the report. "If India can sustain this, its electrification challenge will be solved within a generation."
When you include every type of energy and fuel—that means coal to cow pies–India is a sort of power superpower. It is the world's third-largest supplier of energy in all its forms after China and the United States.
This means that the evolution of its energy-use patterns is crucial for any attempt to clean up the way the world powers itself.
Of course, more Indians getting on the grid doesn't mean India's power problems are over. The country has been able to bring electricity connections to so many because an embarrassingly large number of its citizens are without power. More than 260 million Indians still have no access to electricity, that's more powerless people than any other country.
The percentage of Indians with access to electricity has jumped from 51% in 1990 to 79% in 2012, but it is still well behind most other countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Only sub-Saharan African countries do a worse job on average, according to the World Bank report.
The electricity access percentage just measures who has access to electricity in their homes, it does not take into account how many hours of power people actually get.
"It's one thing to have a wire coming into your home, it's another thing to have 24/7 power," said Ms. Foster.
India has also done a similarly impressive but incomplete job of bringing cleaner fuels into homes.
The World Bank report shows that, as of 2012, only 36% of Indians had access to non-solid fuel – such as compressed natural gas cylinders. That means 64% of Indians rely on wood, charcoal and other solid fuels to cook and heat their homes. A whopping 29% of the energy consumed in India is through these so called "traditional" biofuels, the report said.
Not having easy, affordable access to natural gas or other liquid or gas fuels is not only bad for the environment, it also exposes poor families to health hazards from burning wood and charcoal in their homes.
As millions more Indians get power piped into their homes, the country's use of a renewable energy sources is coming down as a percentage of its overall consumption, the report showed. The reason is that the expansion of the country's modern renewable energy capacity is not keeping up with overall capacity. It is also, in part, a result of Indians relying less on traditional renewables like wood and charcoal.
Eric Bellman is Deputy Bureau Chief of South Asia, follow him on Twitter.
For breaking news, features and analysis from India, click here and follow WSJ India on Facebook.
By Joko Hariyanto , I Made Sentana
JAKARTA, Indonesia—The World Bank has offered a big chunk of funding to Indonesia, a signal that the Washington-based lender is pushing back against China's ambitions to finance projects in the region.
Earlier Wednesday, Jim Yong Kim, president of the multilateral lender, offered President Joko Widodo up to $11 billion in new loans over the next three to four years for basic infrastructure such as roads, seaports, and improving the quality of its workforce.
The World Bank's offer to Indonesia comes as China is driving an effort to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, seen as a challenge to the Western-led financing institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Indonesia is one of the AIIB's founding members, and has welcomed loans from the yet-to-be established bank to finance big-ticket infrastructure projects.
China has pledged billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in Asia: through commercial investments in Pakistan and Indonesia, and the Export-Import Bank of China, which has funded power plants and roads in places like Vietnam and Myanmar.
President Widodo is targeting more than $400 billion for investment in infrastructure projects within the next five years, most of which is expected to come from private investors.
"We reiterated our commitment to continue supporting Indonesia," said Mr. Kim after a meeting with Mr. Widodo in the president's office in Jakarta. Mr. Kim also praised Mr. Widodo for "going in the right direction," and reiterated the World Bank's projection of 5% growth this year.
In March, Mr. Widodo visited Beijing and Tokyo to seek investments for projects like power plants, roads, seaports and railways from two of the world's biggest economies. He walked away with preliminary commitments of $63 billion from Chinese companies, and just under $9 billion from firms in Japan.
Beijing's push for its new infrastructure bank is a response to criticism that multilateral organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are dominated by the U.S. and Europe and don't heed the voice of developing countries.
Last month at the opening of a conference of Asian African leaders in Jakarta, Mr. Widodo called for a new global economic order that isn't dependent on the World Bank, the IMF and the ADB "to avoid the domination of certain groups of countries."
But the World Bank loan shows that Jakarta remains open to getting money from a wide range of sources. It's unlikely eager to become overreliant on China, which has a mixed track record in Indonesia.
In the 2000s, Chinese state-owned companies built a series of coal-fired power plants in Indonesia, financed by concessionary financing from Beijing. Indonesia complained the plants were poorly built and ran below capacity.
Jakarta also has grumbled that China announces projects but fails to follow through. China's investment realization was just 7% of what was pledged between 2005 and 2014. That's lower than Japan's 65% and Singapore's 40%, according to Indonesia's investment board.
Still, those metrics may be improving. The board noted China's actual investment rose to $800 million in 2014 from $297 million in 2013, and said Indonesia has received investment pledges totaling $13.7 billion from last October through mid-March from Chinese investors.
Write to I Made Sentana at email@example.com


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Articles & Reviews
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First GNOME 3.0 Development Release Available
Published on 30 October 2009 02:17 PM EDT
Written by
Michael Larabel
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The much anticipated
release is
coming in March
, but the first development release (v2.29.1) for GNOME 3.0 (a.k.a. 2.30) is now available this week. For months now we have seen early development snapshots of the new
GNOME Shell
, and
modules, but now that
GNOME 2.28 was released
, all of these free software developers have turned their attention towards the major 3.0 release.
Aside from the the Mutter, GNOME Shell, and Zeitgeist work, the modules common to the GNOME 2.xx desktop have not encountered too much in the way of major changes. GNOME's Totem web-browser plug-in now supports playing back MIDI files, Eye of GNOME now supports animated GIF files, and improved CD/DVD burning with Brasero, while a bulk of the packages found in GNOME 2.29.1 just contain bug-fixes and translation updates. Showing off some improvements in GNOME 2.29.1 though is GNOME Games, which brings the new "Lightsoff" game, more work in porting user-interfaces over to Seed/Clutter, and moving the games networking support to using GNOME's Telepathy for communication.
Those interested in downloading the GNOME 2.29.1 package set can do so from the
2.29.1 mailing list announcement
. The next development release, GNOME 2.29.2, is set to be introduced on the 18th of November followed by two more development releases before year's end. The API/ABI and feature freezes for GNOME 2.30/3.0 is coming up in January, which by then we should see many more features showing for the GNOME 3.0 desktop.
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Thank you all for the good wishes for my Birthday which is today.
0 · August 24, 2013
12 to 4 is good for me on friday
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I WILL BE COMING AT 12:00pm ON FRIDAY AND STAY TILL 2:30pm. I ALWAYS WORK ON FRIDAYS AT 3:00PM.
0 · August 19, 2013
Had a great time on Friday, lovely women
0 · August 17, 2013
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Over the years, my late husband, Bill, and I drove the highway to the summit of Mount Evans many, many times. It was one of our favorite places. We loved the high mountains, and Mount Evans was one of the good guys because he wore a white hat (of snow).
I loved the alpine botany, and Bill always looked for the nesting birds and especially for a black swift flying over. We both were impressed by the silent grandeur of the Continental Divide, and the serenity and peace in the high mountains. In some way, we both seemed to feel at home there.
I haven't driven that road now for several years for I don't believe the shortage of oxygen would be good for me, however in years past, there was always a large yellow-bellied marmot that claimed one of the pull offs on a switchback very near the top. She had her den beneath a large rock in the rock slide that was part of the highway construction. She whistled at every car that went by or pulled off over her burrow. She was a big old marmot that was wise in the ways of her kind and whistled a warning every time a predator came close enough to be a threat. Be it a golden eagle overhead or a car on the road, her whistle sent young marmots and other animals scurrying into their burrows.
If you were an easterner, you probably slowed down to take a good look at that "big woodchuck" for they are closely related. In fact, many people call these marmots roadchucks. They are in the same genus as the woodchuck. Their Latin name is Marmota flaviventris, which is the European name for their marmot, and flava simply means yellow and ventris is underside or belly. They don't look for areas of deep soil to dig a burrow as woodchucks do but prefer to take over the natural tunnels formed by rock slides where they cannot be dug out.
The yellow-bellied marmot is usually bigger than the woodchucks I knew in the East, but most of the reference books I have say they are smaller. That may just be because the woodchucks in the East seldom live long enough to become full size while yellow-bellied marmots on Mount Evans in their rock burrowslive long enough to reach a large and venerable age.
The hoary marmot of the Northwest is the largest of the three and has much white and black (hoary) on the fur on its head and shoulders. The books also list the range of the yellow-bellied marmot from the foothills to above timberline. I have never seen one down this low, perhaps because all our local meadows are home to other ground squirrels.
Many books list prairie dogs in the lower foothills, which I have never seen either. The nearest prairie dog town I know of is near Chatfield Reservoir.
Marmots live almost entirely on soft, tender, new plant growth and do not consider the dry brown grasses at the end of summer fit to eat. In drought summers such as we had this year, they estivate, which means they go to sleep or into a hibernation-like state in summer when the grasses and other plants have turned brittle and dry. If we get rain and plants turn green again with new growth, they begin to feed again.
However, frost comes early at their altitude, and the grass soon turns brown again, and they go into hibernation for the long winter. They have the longest hibernation of any of the small mammals. They often are in this deep sleep-like state for more time than they are awake each year.
They are not awake on Groundhog Day and would not go back to sleep if they saw their shadow. They usually appear sometime in April but once awake, they stay awake. They mate in the early spring and have young in late spring. The young develop very quickly for they have a very short time to put on enough fat to see them through their first winter's hibernation.
The marmot's voice is a sharp whistle, a warning call that there is some predator in the area. Although it is sometimes described as a musical whistle, it has no melody. It sounds like a short, loud blast of a single note on a police whistle. I know that sound well for my mother had a police whistle that she blew whenever she wanted us children to come home. We roamed over more than 600 acres in the summer, but one blast on the whistle meant we were to come home, and it was not an acceptable excuse that we couldn't hear it.
The Mount Evans road is closed this year, but do go up it next summer to look for the yellow-bellied marmots. They are an interesting part of the arctic life we find above timberline.
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text:
Shopping and getting some pussy are two of our favorite things to do. It is the ultimate high. Its even better when the two come together like a perfect plan. We hooked up with Stacy while trying on some clothing. We got to see the goods before we bagged her. She was really down to have some fun so we showed her a pussy licking great time.
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Charlie Laine


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