Financial economics

"Immediate 15 percent cuts of pensions and salaries"

BELGRADE -- Unless public sector salaries and pensions are immediately reduced by 15 percent linearly, a new reduction will have to be implemented in the next year.

BELGRADE - Unless public sector salaries and pensions are immediately reduced by 15 percent linearly, a new reduction will have to be implemented in the next year already, the Fiscal Council warned and added that any lower cut would compel the government to make up for the funds through VAT increase.

By John Geddie

Greek bond yields edged lower on Monday after a credit rating upgrade from Standard & Poor's, which said the country remained on track to emerge from a six-year recession.

The upgrade to B from B- late on Friday is a boost for Greece's fragile coalition government, which is hoping to escape the constraints of its EU/IMF bailout program.

BELGRADE - The government has insufficient funds for pensions, but pension cuts alone will not be sufficient to ensure the sustainability of the pension system unless they are accompanied by financial consolidation in all sectors, the participants in a debate on pension system reform said on Wednesday.

Fitch Ratings has affirmed Macedonia's Long-term  foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) at 'BB+' with Stable Outlooks.

The issue ratings on senior unsecured foreign currency bonds have also been affirmed at 'BB+'. Fitch has also affirmed Macedonia's Short-term IDR at 'B' and Country Ceiling at 'BBB-'.

Turkey’s banking watchdog will take a closer look at the operations of the Islamic lender Bank Asya, after talks with potential buyers failed to yield results.

By Yiannis Papadoyiannis

Private sector deleveraging, or the reduction of loans to households and enterprises, is continuing despite the significant improvement in the country’s economy.

Turkish lenders’ borrowing that jumped by almost threefold has been the main driver of the eye-catching rise in the country’s external debt, rating agency Fitch has said in a report, warning this puts the banks’ ratings at risk.

“Most of the recent increase in Turkey’s external debt has been driven by bank borrowing,” read a statement released by the agency on Aug. 3.

Bulgaria's public debt at the end of July 2014 amounted to EUR 9.4242B, according to data revealed by the Ministry of Finance.

In just a month, Bulgarian government debt has increased by almost EUR 1.31B. The main reason for the growth is the issuance of eurobonds at the international capital markets, the Financial Ministry report showed.

The largest state-run lender, Ziraat Bank, applies to banking watchdog to establish an Islamic lender. The government plans to establish three state-owned Islamic banks by the end of 2015 State-run Ziraat Bank has applied to the country’s banking watchdog (BDDK) to establish an Islamic lender, it said in a statement on Aug. 29.