organization:ministry of finance

  • Koļegova withdraws application for SRS director vacancy

    After many questions arouse linked to Koļegova income declaration, she decided to withdraw her application for the SRS director vacancy.
    Ministry of Finance will open a new competition for this vacancy.

    http://www.diena.lv/latvija/viedokli/politologs-kolegova-nonaca-zem-loti-speciga-spiediena-14150855
    Valsts vides dienesta (VVD) vadītāja Inga Koļegova bija nonākusi zem ļoti spēcīga politiķu un viņas kandidatūras uz Valsts ieņēmumu dienesta (VID) ģenerāldirektora amatu pretinieku spiediena, aģentūrai LETA sacīja politologs Filips Rajevskis.

    #Latvia #Latvija #Koļegova #SRS #Ministry_of_Finance

  • India: BJP backtracks on opposition to retail liberalisation
    https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5418-india-bjp-backtracks-on-opposition-to-retail-liberalisation

    The previous central government signed into being legislation allowing FDI in multi brand retailing up to 51%, but through the government route- requires prior approval of the central Government which are considered by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance- and with some riders. The present central government, led by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), was and, in principle, still is against its predecessor’s decision to allow 51% FDI in multi-brand retail. But the consolidated FDI policy of the present BJP led government has not reversed the earlier decision. Instead, the Indian government is further liberalising the sector. The new Indian government has eased FDI norms and the conditions on minimum capitalisation. Floor area restrictions have also now been removed for the construction of shopping complexes.

    Up to 100% FDI is now allowed in coffee/rubber/cardamom/palm oil and olive oil plantations via the automatic route- without prior approval either of the Central Government or the Reserve Bank of India. Manufacturers can now sell their products through wholesale and/or retail, including through e-commerce without Government Approval.

    #Inde #commerce #détail

  • Minister No More! par Yanis Varoufakis
    Posted on July 6, 2015 by yanisv
    http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/06/minister-no-more

    The referendum of 5th July will stay in history as a unique moment when a small European nation rose up against debt-bondage.

    Like all struggles for democratic rights, so too this historic rejection of the Eurogroup’s 25th June ultimatum comes with a large price tag attached. It is, therefore, essential that the great capital bestowed upon our government by the splendid NO vote be invested immediately into a YES to a proper resolution – to an agreement that involves debt restructuring, less austerity, redistribution in favour of the needy, and real reforms.

    Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners’, for my… ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today.

    I consider it my duty to help Alexis Tsipras exploit, as he sees fit, the capital that the Greek people granted us through yesterday’s referendum.

    And I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride.

    We of the Left know how to act collectively with no care for the privileges of office. I shall support fully Prime Minister Tsipras, the new Minister of Finance, and our government.

    The superhuman effort to honour the brave people of Greece, and the famous OXI (NO) that they granted to democrats the world over, is just beginning.

    #Yanis_Varoufakis #Grèce

    • écrit quelques heures avant l’annonce de sa démission

      Our NO is a majestic, big YES to a democratic, rational Europe ! par Yanis Varoufakis
      Posted on July 6, 2015 by yanisv

      (...) Ending interminable, self-defeating, austerity and restructuring Greece’s public debt were our two targets. But these two were also our creditors’ targets. From the moment our election seemed likely, last December, the powers-that-be started a bank run and planned, eventually, to shut Greece’s banks down. Their purpose?

      To humiliate our government by forcing us to succumb to stringent austerity, and
      To drag us into an agreement that offers no firm commitment to a sensible, well-defined debt restructure.

      The ultimatum of 25th June was the means by which these aims would be achieved. The people of Greece today returned this ultimatum to its senders; despite the fear mongering that the domestic oligarchic media transmitted night and day into their homes.

      Today’s referendum delivered a resounding call for a mutually beneficial agreement between Greece and our European partners. We shall respond to the Greek voters’ call with a positive approach to:

      The IMF, which only recently released a helpful report confirming that Greek public debt was unsustainable
      The ECB, the Governing Council of which, over the past week, refused to countenance some of the more aggressive voices within
      The European Commission, whose leadership kept throwing bridges over the chasm separating Greece from some of our partners.

      Our NO is a majestic, big YES to a democratic Europe.

      It is a NO to the dystopic vision of a Eurozone that functions like an iron cage for its peoples.

      It is a loud YES to the vision of a Eurozone offering the prospect of social justice with shared prosperity for all Europeans.

    • Yanis Varoufakis: the economist who wouldn’t play politics
      par Paul Mason
      Monday 06 Jul 2015
      http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/yanis-varoufakis-economist-play-politics/4081

      The lenders detested Varoufakis because he looked and sounded like one of them. He spoke the language of the IMF and ECB, and turned their own logic against them. But he achieved his objective: he convinced the lenders Greece was serious.

      Varoufakis critics in Greek politics accused him of flamboyant gestures and adopting a stance he could not deliver on. His critics in Syriza believed from the outset he was “a neo-liberal”.

      Among the lenders it was always the north European politicians who could not live with Varoufakis. Though he was at odds with the IMF’s Christine Lagarde and at odds with the IMF over all matters of substance they at least spoke the same language.

      His policy was total honesty, and when it could not be honesty in public it was honesty in private. He exploded the world of Brussels journalism, which had become back-channel stenography, by publishing the key documents, usually sometime after midnight.

      In the process he has templated a style of politics that may be equally adaptable for the right as on the left, for those with the will to try it: operating from principles, being as open as possible with information, engaging the public in language they can understand, and putting his entire persona on the line.

      ““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
      Paul Mason
      https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/617978699644805120
      Correct link to 15 minute @yanisvaroufakis interview with me Friday. Should have asked: will you quit if you win!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmqnYHmRg48

  • Wolf Richter: No Wonder German Workers Drag Down Retail Sales – And Much Of The Economy
    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/02/wolf-richter-wonder-german-workers-drag-retail-sales-much-economy.h

    Not that 2013 was such a great year in Germany, economically speaking, with growth stalling out at a measly 0.4%, barely above the dreaded zero line. But it was a great year, nay, superb year, for extracting taxes from hard-working people. Tax collections by the Federal Government and the Länder (states), according to the Ministry of Finance, rose a combined 3.3% (in a stalling economy!) to €570.2 billion, the highest ever.

    A few delicious goodies:

    Corporations got off easy: After years of “tax reform,” the coddled German multinationals, and maybe even the Mittelstand – those closely-held global niche players that are the official pride of Germany – had apparently soaring profits, and corporate income tax revenues soared in parallel 15.2% to … drumroll … €19.5 billion. A mere 3.4% of all taxes collected! OK, they also faced other taxes, about which they have been complaining vociferously for years, including their share of €39.4 billion in energy tax, €7 billion in electricity tax, and €1.2 billion in nuclear fuels tax.

    Consumers got whacked: revenues from the Value Added Tax (VAT) hit €196.8 billion – ten times the amount of corporate income taxes, and by far the largest component of all taxes. Individual income taxes jumped 6.1% to €158.2 billion – the second largest component. Workers also paid €14.4 billion in Solidarity Surcharge – a “temporary” tax to fund the bailout of East Germany after Reunification. They paid special taxes on tobacco, spirits, beer, and coffee. They paid taxes on motor vehicles. They paid big-fat taxes on energy. They paid taxes on income and consumption until they croaked.

  • Norwegian Oil Money in Dirty Business | oaklandinstitute.org
    http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/norwegian-oil-money-dirty-business

    On October 14, 2013, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance announced its decision to exclude two Malaysian logging companies, WTK Holdings Berhad and Ta Ann Holdings Berhad, from its Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) portfolio. Its decision, based on the recommendation made by the Council on Ethics in June and December, 2012 (see here also), has been hailed internationally, given the severe environmental damage caused by the two companies on the island of Borneo, Malaysia.
    ...
    But is the Norwegian GPFG really as responsible as it is believed to be? Is it safeguarding the values of the Norwegian people?
    ...
    What also remains unknown to many is that the GPFG owns equities in a number of companies that have been heavily criticized for unethical and environmentally unsound practices, one of them being Monsanto, where it owns $385 million worth of equities. Monsanto is internationally opposed for being at the forefront in the development and promotion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and for its notorious practice of suing hundreds of small family farmers in the US whose fields have been contaminated by Monsanto seeds.
    ...
    Furthermore, the GPFG invests in 90 of the 100 largest oil companies in the world, and 68 of the 100 largest coal companies. This contradicts the Norwegian government’s stated goal of fighting climate change. One such investment includes Royal Dutch Shell, a company harshly criticized by the UN for causing severe damage to the environment and the people of the Niger delta over the last 50 years.

    #Norvège #éthique_en_toc #énergie signalé par @fil

  • UCC to Lebanon: Liberate Public Property
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/ucc-lebanon-liberate-public-property

    With this in mind, the UCC, which has been on an open-ended strike for three weeks, has opted to focus on several possible sources of revenue that could eliminate this deficit and finance a new pay scale. Such revenue sources would include fines on individuals and businesses occupying public seafront property illegally – fines worth nearly $1.93 billion for the past decade alone.

    However, the Lebanese Ministry of Finance was quick to circumvent this demand. In the draft budget for 2013 that Minister of Finance Mohammad Safadi submitted to the cabinet on 9 March, the ministry proposed reducing these fines by more than 60 percent.

    If this happens, the state would be surrendering more of its rights to accommodate aggressors against public property.

  • Rannie Amiri: Why Zogby is Wrong About Bahrain
    http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri04052011.html

    If Mr. Zogby wants to address the “roots of Bahrain’s crisis” he would do well to note that the 70% Shia population fill none of the senior posts in the Ministry of Defense, National Guard, Ministry of Interior Affairs, the Supreme Defense Council, Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, the General Organization for Youth and Sports, the Royal Court, the Crown Prince Court, the Central Informatics Organization, and the Survey and Land Registration Bureau.

    Likewise, they form a only five percent of the judiciary corps, 16 percent of the diplomatic corps, seven percent of the Ministry of Transportation, 18 percent of the Constitutional Court, 10 percent of the Ministry of Finance and six percent of the Ministry of Information (Source: Bahrain Center for Human Rights). Their representation in the public sector is equally dismal.

    Of the 1,000 employees in the National Security Apparatus (NSA), more than two-thirds are non-Bahraini (largely Jordanian, Egyptian, Yemeni and Pakistani nationals) and overwhelmingly Sunni. Bahraini Shia citizens constitute less than five percent of the NSA and occupy only low-level positions or act as paid informants. The paramilitary Special Security Forces (SSF) operates under NSA supervision and numbers 20,000—90 percent of whom are non-Bahraini. A single Bahraini Shia member is not counted among them.

    These imported mercenaries are the ones who rampaged through Manama’s Pearl Roundabout on two separate occasions over the past six weeks, beating peaceful, unarmed and defenseless protestors encamped there. Before their violent eviction, Pearl Roundabout was the epicenter of calls for free elections, release of political prisoners, fairness in distribution in jobs and housing, freedom of the press and religion, an end to the regime’s routine use of torture, and ultimately a transition to a constitutional monarchy. It was the SSF who pulled patients out of rooms in Salmaniya Hospital to continue the beatings, as they did to ambulance drivers, treating paramedics and doctors.

    #bahreïn

  • Syria first bond issue – A first round win for the Ministry of Finance
    http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=7962

    After three years of speculation, the Syrian ministry of Finance has finally concluded its first bond sale this Monday. As an initial step, one Billion Syrian pounds ($21 million) in both 3 and 6 month maturities were auctioned. Although the amounts are relatively small, the auction was twice oversubscribed. In other words, buyers were prepared to buy twice what the amount that was on offer. The early talk was that the Ministry was looking to sell the 3 month bills at 1% and the 6 month maturity at 1.15%. The official auction results were out today. From the standpoint of the government, it was a resounding success:

    The 3 months bill auction had bids totaling SYP 2.8 billion (one billion was for sale). The lowest bid was at 0.2% while the highest was 2.5%. Four bidders were the lucky ones who were able to lend to the government for 3 months at 0.4%.

    The 6 months bill auction had bids totaling SYP 2.1 billion (also one billion was for sale). The lowest bid was at 0.5% while the highest was 3%. Again, four bidders were the lucky ones. Clearly, those hoping to lend (buy the bills) at 2.5% and 3% did not have a chance.