Suriname: Suriname devalues currency as gold and oil prices drop

Global growth will be disappointing in 2016: IMF's Lagarde

2016/01/02 World economic increase will be disappointing next year and the outlook for the medium-term has as well deteriorated, the chief of the International Monetary Fund said in a guest article for German newspaper Handelsblatt published on Wednesday. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the prospect of rising interest rates in the United States and an economic slowdown in China were contributing to uncertainty and a higher risk of economic vulnerability worldwide. Added to that, increase in world trade has slowed considerably and a decline in raw material prices is posing problems for economies based on these, while the financial sector in a lot of nations still has weaknesses and financial risks are rising in emerging markets, she said.

CARICOM and USAID reach agreement on development assistance for Caribbean

2015/11/27 The United States Agency for International Improvment(USAID) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) today signed agreements that will see nations of the eastern and southern Caribbean benefiting from US$165 million in development assistance. An estimated US$89 million will target the reduction of youth involvement in crime and violence in target communities, while US$52 million is designated to achieving epidemic control of HIV/AIDS part key populations, and $31 million will go towards reducing the risks to human and natural assets resulting from climate vulnerability. CARICOM Secretary General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque and USAID Eastern and Southern Caribbean Mission Director, Christopher Cushing, initialled the five-year Development Objective Agreements (DOAGs) at the CARICOM Secretariat in Guyana.

Revised IMF forecasts signal gloom on global economic outlook

2015/01/20 Low oil prices will not provide a sufficient updraught to dispel the clouds hanging over the world economy, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. In a sign of its increasing gloom about the medium term economic outlook, the IMF cut its world economic increase forecasts by 0.3 % points for both 2015 and 2016, despite believing cheaper oil represents a “shot in the arm”.

Oxfam Study Finds Richest 1% Is Likely to Control Half of Global Wealth by 2016

2015/01/20 The richest 1 % are likely to control additional than half of the globe’s total wealth by next year, the charity Oxfam reported in a study released on Monday. The warning about deepening world inequality comes just as the world’s business elite prepare to meet this week at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The 80 wealthiest people in the world all own $1.9 trillion, the statement found, nearly the same all shared by the 3.5 billion people who occupy the bottom half of the world’s gain scale. (Last year, it took 85 billionaires to equal that figure.) And the richest 1 % of the people, who number in the millions, control nearly half of the world’s total wealth, a share that is as well increasing.