October 31, 2011
Japan intervenes in currency markets and yen weakens 5%
The Japanese government has intervened in the currency market to weaken the yen after it hit a post-war high. The move resulted in the yen weakening as much as 5%. It was recently trading at 79.33 against the US dollar compared with 75.31 in early…
October 31, 2011
Guyana slips one place in World Bank’s rankings
Guyana has, in the latest World Bank International Financial Corporation’s Doing Business 2012: Doing Business in a More Transparent World report, slipped one place down the ratings to 114 out of 183 economies examined. However, in the region St…
October 31, 2011
Qantas ordered to resume flights
Qantas will resume flights on Monday after an independent tribunal ordered a permanent end to the industrial dispute with its union members. Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline will resume flights by mid-afternoon on a limited…
October 31, 2011
Businesses hoping for a reasonable Christmas in Barbados
Traditionally, Christmas signified a major boost for many businesses in the retail industry in Barbados, especially food items and hardware. However, the recession has continued to produce lower numbers and it is possible this year will be no…
October 29, 2011
Germany finds extra 55bn euros after accounting error
Germany has found itself 55bn euros ($78bn; £48bn) richer after discovering an accounting error at Hypo Real Estate (HRE), the troubled bank it nationalised in 2009. The country now expects its ratio of debt to GDP to be 81.1% for 2011, 2.6…
October 29, 2011
Eurozone seeks bailout funds from China
The head of the eurozone's bailout fund is beginning attempts to persuade China to invest in a scheme to help rescue member countries facing debt crises. After meeting Chinese leaders, Klaus Regling said there were no formal negotiations and would…
October 29, 2011
Samsung overtakes Apple in smartphone shipments
Samsung overtook Apple to become the world's biggest shipper of smartphones between July and September. Research from Strategy Analytics showed that Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the three-month period, compared with 17.1 million…
October 29, 2011
Italy sells bonds at record high of 6% at auction
Italy's cost of borrowing has reached a record high, despite the deal reached to contain the eurozone debt crisis. Italy paid 6.06% to borrow for 10 years at an auction on Friday, the most since the euro was created in 1999. The rate jumped from…
October 29, 2011
Directors’ pay rose 50% in past year, says IDS report
Pay for the directors of the UK's top businesses rose 50% over the past year, a pay research company has said. Incomes Data Services (IDS) said this took the average pay for a director of a FTSE 100 company to just short of £2.7m. The rise, covering…
October 27, 2011
Shell and Exxon see profits up sharply on oil prices
Higher gas and oil prices have pushed up profits at ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell during the three months to the end of September. Current cost of supply net income at Shell doubled to $7.2bn (£4.5bn), compared with $3.5bn during the same period…