industryterm:finance ministry

Parliament, public against welfare cuts - Freedoms make austerity campaign tricky for govt - Kuwait Times | Kuwait Times
▻http://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/parliament-public-welfare-cuts

Billions of dollars are at stake; finance ministry undersecretary Khalifa Hamada told the al-Qabas newspaper at the end of last year that “rationalizing” subsidies would save the government KD 2.6 billion ($8.7 billion) over three years. Savings would be greater if the bloated public payroll could be reformed. The finance ministry projected in January that the government would run a budget deficit of KD 12.2 billion in the fiscal year starting on April 1, 2016, after state contributions to the sovereign wealth fund.

Between 7,000 and 13,000 of around 18,000 Kuwaiti nationals in the oil sector took part in the strike in late April, union members estimated. Union membership is not compulsory and foreign workers are not permitted to strike. Workers were protesting a proposed overhaul of the public sector payroll system that would set uniform standards for salaries, bonuses and benefits. The Oil and Petrochemical Industries Workers Confederation fears the government will use the reform to freeze salaries of higher-paid employees.

Ultimately, the union called off the strike “in honor of His Highness the Amir”, and the government insisted it made no concessions – an apparent victory for authorities. But the union has been talking to the government since the strike ended, so concessions could still be made. Kuwait’s oil output fell as low as 1.1 million barrels per day during the strike from the usual output of around 3 million bpd, tarnishing the country’s image as a reliable exporter.

“The workers have achieved their main objective of getting their message across,” said Faisal Abu Sulaib, another political science professor at Kuwait University. Saif al-Qahtani, chairman of the oil workers’ union, said he could not speak for other unions but that some of them also opposed wage system reform. Some other union members and analysts said a string of strikes in Kuwait remained unlikely. An official at the headquarters of the Kuwait Trade Union Federation, which represents 15 unions in the energy and government sectors, said it had not been informed of any other planned walkouts.

Nevertheless, in the wake of the oil strike, the government may move even more gradually and cautiously with reforms. While most of the current parliament has been relatively supportive of the idea of reform, legislative elections are due next year, and the government will not want the issue of austerity to cause the election of a more antagonistic parliament.

Varoufakis reveals cloak and dagger ’Plan B’ for Greece, awaits treason charges - Telegraph
▻http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11764018/Varoufakis-reveals-cloak-and-dagger-Plan-B-for-Greece-awaits-treason-ch

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03317/61762019_Yanis_Var_3317841k.jpg

A secret cell at the Greek finance ministry hacked into the government computers and drew up elaborate plans for a system of parallel payments that could be switched from euros to the drachma at the “flick of a button” .

The revelations have caused a political storm in Greece and confirm just how close the country came to drastic measures before premier Alexis Tsipras gave in to demands from Europe’s creditor powers, acknowledging that his own cabinet would not support such a dangerous confrontation.

Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister, told a group of investors in London that a five-man team under his control had been working for months on a contingency plan to create euro liquidity if the European Central Bank cut off emergency funding to the Greek financial system, as it in fact did after talks broke down and Syriza called a referendum.

#Ukraine debt talks reach boiling point - FT.com
▻http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0ad2796a-f8d8-11e4-8e16-00144feab7de.html

Ukraine’s $23bn debt restructuring negotiations appeared to reach boiling point late on Tuesday after the government issued a sharply worded statement that questioned the #transparency, responsiveness and #good_faith of a creditors’ committee.
With positions hardening weeks before a planned June deadline to avoid default, the finance ministry of war-torn and recession-battered Ukraine in the statement said it was “concerned about the approach taken by the creditors’ committee representing the country’s external debt holders and their lack of willingness to engage in negotiations.”

Claiming that the creditor committee refused “despite numerous requests” to reveal its membership, the finance ministry stressed that it and debtholders needed by June “to agree on a sustainable debt level and debt service objectives meeting the targets” of an International Monetary Fund programme granted earlier this year.
“The ministry is committed to transparency, responsiveness and good faith negotiations and expects the creditors’ committee to do the same,” Kiev added.
The tough words come amid increasing market expectations that the restructuring talks are likely to stretch on through the summer as Ukraine continues — in the face of creditor disapproval — to demand a #haircut, cuts to the coupon and maturity extensions to free up $15bn over the next four years.
[…]
The committee of creditors declined to comment on the finance ministry statement.
International holders of Ukrainian debt, which include US investor Franklin Templeton, say there is little point in setting final terms for a debt restructuring while the country is fighting a war and its economic situation is in a state of flux. They disagree with Kiev’s insistence that the only way for Ukrainian debt to become sustainable is through a haircut for investors.
Bondholders are promoting an alternative solution that would involve granting an extension to upcoming debt payments.

le Caire renoue avec le FMI après 4 ans d’interruption

Egypt to ask IMF for first ‘Article IV’ consultations in 3 years

Reuters
▻http://english.alarabiya.net/en Saturday, 13 September 2014

Egypt will ask the IMF for a long-delayed economic assessment in the hope of improving the country’s image before a February investment conference, the finance ministry said in a statement.
The government said it wants the results published before the Egypt Economic Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, a conference to boost investment in an economy battered by years of political turmoil and a lack of investor confidence.
“ We hope that the (IMF) report comes in favour of Egypt and contributes to the return of foreign flows, either directly as investments in the real economy or indirectly by improving the stock market,” the finance ministry statement said.

Egypt has not held Article IV consultations, where IMF experts assess a country’s financial and economic state of affairs, since March 2010, according to the IMF.
The consultations scheduled for a year later were postponed after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011.
Mubarak’s ouster and the political turmoil that followed it triggered a sharp decline in foreign investment and tourism revenues, hammering the country’s economy.
The unemployment rate is 13.4 %, up from 9 % in 2010, and 60 % of youth are unemployed, the government said last week.

Officials forecast economic growth at just 3.2 % in the fiscal year that began July 1, well below levels needed to create enough jobs for a rapidly growing population and ease widespread poverty.
A successful investment conference might help the government push through reforms needed to reach agreement on a loan package with the International Monetary Fund.
An IMF deal could then improve confidence among investors, who have been unnerved both by years of turmoil and by a host of other problems, ranging from costly energy subsidies to lack of transparency in economic management.
Gulf states, which have been planning the conference since April, have taken a keen interest in seeing Egypt, the largest Arab state, get back on its feet.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have provided more than $12 billion in cash and petroleum products to prop up Egypt’s economy since the ouster of Islamist President Mohammad Mursi last year.
They see Egypt as the front line in the battle against the Muslim Brotherhood, and want to see the current government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi succeed after he toppled Mursi.
The Brotherhood’s populist platform helped it triumph in post-Mubarak elections, but its political Islam puts the group directly at odds with the Gulf monarchies’ dynastic rule.
Gulf countries also want to ensure aid and investment are spent efficiently in a country where past leaders with military backgrounds have often mismanaged the economy.

Egypt : President Mansour signs law to raise income tax on millionaires for 3 years - Ahram Online
▻http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/103005.aspx

Egypt’s outgoing interim President Adly Mansour signed into law a decree adding a 5 percent tax for three years individuals with incomes in excess of LE1 million and on profits of companies in excess of the same amount, Al-Ahram’s Arabic news website reported.
In early May, the cabinet led by Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahleb approved the draft submitted by the finance ministry suggesting an additional 5 percent tax on those who earn more than LE1 million annually.

The 5 percent tax rate increase is to be applied temporarily for a period of three years.

Currently, those earning above LE250,000 a year are taxed at a rate of 25 percent.

The exceptional measure is designed to answer calls for social justice raised during Egypt’s 2011 revolution

#Norway fund blacklists Israeli companies with settlement ties
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/norway-fund-blacklists-israeli-companies-settlement-ties

Norway’s huge sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, blacklisted two Israeli companies involved in construction of settlements in East Jerusalem, the country’s finance ministry said Thursday. The ban on investing in the firms revived a three-year prohibition on them that the Government Pension Fund of Norway had dropped in August last year. The companies are Africa #Israel Investments, an Israeli real estate developer, and its construction subsidiary Danya Cerbus. read more

#BDS #Palestine #Top_News

Striking workers force #Yemen's airports to shut
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/striking-workers-force-yemens-airports-shut

Yemen shut its international airports on Monday after workers at its civil aviation authority went on strike, officials at the transport ministry and airports said. The strike was due to a dispute with the finance ministry over the independence of the civil aviation authority, an official at the transport ministry said. The finance ministry froze the authority’s funds, he said. “The strike is ongoing until our demands are met,” the official said, declining to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly to media. read more

#Top_News #workers_strike

Quand les pays du Golfe, lire Bahreïn, sortent de la logique de l’économie de rente. Déficit et endettement ne sont pas loin

Bahrain parliament approves 11 pct rise in 2013 budget spending | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/25/bahrain-budget-idUSL5N0F02MJ20130625

Bahrain’s 2014 spending plan was raised by 164.5 million dinars from last November’s initial finance ministry proposal, to 3.71 billion dinars.

Parliament approved the 2013-2014 budget plan on Monday. Demands within parliament for extra spending, especially to raise public sector salaries by 15 percent, a measure opposed by the cabinet, had delayed approval for several months.

In the end, parliament passed the plan without the public sector pay hike, but it added rises in pension payments for both public and private sector retirees, and higher subsidies for food and other items, to the plan, Almahmood said.

The plan was supported by 23 deputies, while seven rejected it and 10 were absent, he said. Finance ministry officials were not available to comment.

[...]
Bahrain expanded its original 2012 expenditure plan by nearly 19 percent in September 2011 after protesters, inspired by revolts elsewhere in the Arab world, took to the streets of Manama demanding political reforms.

The International Monetary Fund warned in May that the island needed to reform its public finances in the medium term to avoid its debt burden becoming unsustainable.

[...]
The actual deficit in 2012 widened sevenfold to 227 million dinars, though it was still smaller than the government’s original projection.

The oil price which the country needs to balance its budget reached a critical level of $115 per barrel in 2012, making Bahrain vulnerable to any sustained decline in oil prices, the IMF said.

The country relies on output from the Abu Safa oilfield shared with Saudi Arabia - which supports Bahrain’s Sunni rulers politically - for some 70 percent of its budget revenue. Analysts believe Manama’s share of the oil could be raised if its budget runs into trouble.

The IMF expects Bahrain’s fiscal deficit to widen to as much as 8.6 percent of gross domestic product in 2018 from 4.2 percent forecast for this year.