Cable: Quotas for boards are inappropriate March 14, 2012 BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable (pictured) yesterday used new data showing an increase in the number of women on UK corporate boards to rail against the idea of mandatory quotas, saying it would be “inappropriate for Europe to impose them”. A report released by the department of business, innovation and skills yesterday coincided with Cranfield School [...]
Ada and Phyllis get started on Crossrail tunnel March 14, 2012 THE 1,000 tonne diggers that will carve out Crossrail’s path across London were unveiled by Mayor of London Boris Johnson yesterday. Ada and Phyllis, the two giant boring machines, are set to start digging at Royal Oak in west London next week, as part of the four-mile first leg of the Crossrail train tunnel network. [...]
SARKO TAKES FIRST ROUND POLL LEAD March 14, 2012 FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy overtook socialist challenger Francois Hollande for the first time yesterday in an opinion poll on the first round of France’s April-May election after attacking the European Union’s trade and immigration policies. The conservative incumbent was still shown losing to Hollande in a second-round runoff, but by a narrower margin of nine [...]
Greece set to miss targets March 14, 2012 GREECE will have to slash spending even further in the coming years if it is to meet agreed fiscal targets underpinning the second international bailout for Athens, a European Commission (EC) report has said. The country needs to cut an additional 5.5 per cent of GDP from government spending in 2013 and 2014, according to [...]
European markets rejoice as Germany’s confidence soars March 14, 2012 EUROPEAN stocks jumped yesterday on hopes that the German economy is picking up speed. The ZEW index of sentiment increased for the fourth consecutive month, rising sharply from 5.4 in February to 22.3 in March – its highest level since June 2010. “Currently, it seems as if the crisis in the Eurozone has taken a [...]
Draghi: Eurozone may fall apart if competitiveness is not boosted March 14, 2012 A GROWING competitiveness gap threatens the stability and even existence of the Eurozone, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned yesterday. “Increasingly larger and persistent current account deficits have resulted from significant losses of national competitiveness,” Draghi told a conference in Paris. “These current account imbalances within the euro area should be a source of [...]
CHAMPAGNE SALES ON THE RISE March 14, 2012 THIRSTY drinkers in emerging economies shrugged off worries over the global economy last year, splashing out more of their hard-earned cash on imported champagne. China, Russia and Brazil all imported more than a million bottles of champagne each, while India’s appetite spiked by a head-spinning 58.7 per cent to 290,286 bottles. But Britain remains the [...]
UK trade deficit up as EU exports drop March 14, 2012 THE UK’S trade deficit rose in January as the weak EU economies bought fewer British goods and services, official figures showed yesterday. However, chancellor George Osborne (pictured right) is closer to his goal of rebalancing the economy towards foreign sales as exports to non-EU countries rose sharply, the figures from the Office for National Statistics [...]
It’s not easy to please all of two-speed Europe March 14, 2012 WHAT is the economic future for Europe and what role does public opinion play in it? Tomorrow sees the YouGov-Cambridge Symposium on “Public Opinion, Economic Governance and the Future Of Europe” where speakers such as Alistair Darling, Francis Maude, Lord Griffiths and Jim O’Neill will discuss just that. YouGov-Cambridge has conducted what the editor of [...]
Housing market gets brief boost March 14, 2012 ACTIVITY jumped in the housing market in January as first-time buyers rushed to beat the end of the stamp duty holiday this month, but house prices fell in January according to government data. Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) showed a 23 per cent rise in lending to first-time buyers compared with January [...]
