Credit rating agency, Moody `s Investors Service, significantly reduced the level of Portugal


Credit rating agency, Moody `s Investors Service, significantly reduced the level of Portugal because of its debt. Portuguese is the debt level in the category "junk" by the agency and Portugal will need another loan, before taking money from financial markets again.

However, Moody `s assessment is rejected by the Portuguese government which in a statement the agency said in its study and evaluation was not considering drastic measures and budget cuts in recent months taken from Lisbon. Even in the first quarter of this year, the agency Moody `cut rule assessment debt that Portugal, by attributing the need to reduce the amount of debt and poor prospects for economic growth.

For credit rating agency changed the categorization for Portugal from A1 to A3. It retained the rating on negative outlook, suggesting that it could be lowered further evaluation of the Portuguese debt. Even this situation prompted the main opposition party in Portugal to announce that will be opposed to government plans for huge savings.

The country's prime minister has warned that the country may face the need of an aid package from the outside. Portugal suffers from high levels of debt and facing great difficulties to avoid an international package as that given to Greece and Ireland.


Aid for Greece, Blid: Germany gives billions of euros



Germany will contribute billions of euros in payment of the fifth installment loan for Greece, data from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund.


According to German tabloid "Blid" Greece will receive 12 billion euros in loans, of which 5:05 Gjermania.Banka billion from the German public "KFW" will make payment by submitting a written request from the government papers without citing sources.


Germany will thus provide more than half of EU aid, which amounts to 8.7 billion euros, while the IMF will contribute to a loan of 3.3 billion euros



Germany, the euro rescue in constitutional



Billion aid to Germany for the eurozone countries in financial crisis, are finally being put on the bank of legal proof.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, the Constitutional Court defended the aid package as necessary to guarantee stable international financial markets.

His opponents, Peter Gauweiler krisitiansocial politician and five professors of economics at the opening of discussions on the court in Karlsruhe, argued that the democratic control of the federal parliament is at risk. They have filed a lawsuit in Constitutional Court against German participation in the aid packages.

The judges made ​​clear that they are interested in respecting the rules of the game law for charter and non-political definition of a financial right. Their decision is expected to be issued in autumn

EU and IMF are heading towards bringing Greece's budget deficit under control

  European Union and IMF officials will be coming out with the final review with regard to Greece’s defective drive to bring its budget deficit in proper situation. Greece was supposed to start borrowing on financial markets in the next year. However, this plan seems to be less possible. Hence, the EU is working out a new aid plan that would meet Greece’s funding needs in 2012 and 2013. The officials are confirming the Greece’s fiscal progress before approving a 12 billion euro aid. By this new funding package, the country can avoid a default status to happen.

A German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, stated that by the weekend, Greece might not get the money because of having missed all the fiscal targets set by its lenders. However, Greece and the IMF denied the report and Greece Finance Minister, George Papaconstantinou said that Greek expects that they will end up successfully in the couple of days ahead. As the team of European Union and IMF officials in Anthens is likely to complete the review of Greek Finances, it is important for Papandreou to prevent fatigue from spreading to his own party as its popularity goes down. PASOK has a good majority in the parliament. But one weekend opinion poll showed that it was no more in leading position. This situation has placed for the first time, ever since it won elections in the year 2009...... Read More

OECD wants UK to raise interest rates

The organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is of the opinion that Bank of England should start raising interest rates on a slow pace in order to beat inflation. OECD wants UK to raise its key interest to 1% by the end of 2011 and 2.25% by the end of 2012. It feels that a raise would definitely help to prevent further increases in public inflation expectations. According to the six monthly reports on the Global economy, OECD states that an increase in interest rates should take place during 2011 in order to break off increases in inflation expectations.

In March, OECD had predicted 1.5% of UK’S 2011 GDP growth. But now it has lowered its forecast with regard to UK’S 2011 GDP growth to be 1.4%. Also, the growth estimate for the year 2012 has been also lowered to 1.8%. Previously, it was estimated 2%. Most of the bank’s policy makers feel that the economic recovery is too fragile to withstand a rise in this present situation. Hence, Bank of England has kept the base rate of interest at a low record of 0.5% for more than two years. According to OECD, Global recovery is under way but it is taking place at various speeds across different countries.... Read More

The Stock Market is trading in a sloppy way

The stocks continue to move slowly and traders are going to react on the durable goods orders report. The stock market is now heading for a correction but not in a deeper sense. Analysts believe that the market is trading in a sloppy fashion and it is likely to stay in correction mode for a while. The correction is likely to be felt greater in time than in price. The euro was felt greater in time than in price. The euro was up against the dollar, to some extent. However, its present situation depends on the subject to the next headline. If there is any negative news happening, the euro will immediately drop down. Uncertainties will continue to prevail in the market and there is a negative risk involved. However, if there is positive news such as Greece is going to get new funding, in that case there will be a positive outcome..... Read More

Fitch downgraded Greece by cutting Greece’s credit rating

Fitch, the major ratings agency downgraded Greece after it cut Greece’s credit rating by three notches from BB+ to B+. It further warned of more downgrades if the EU and the IMF do not bother to produce a credible plan for the debt stricken nation. Fitch also warned that a move made to extend the maturities of Greece bonds will be considered as default event. So, any debt profiling/restructuring would thereby result in a default. European Central Bank Executive Board member, Juergen Stark stated in an interview that the idea of restructuring of debt by Greece cannot be considered as a solution to its problems. According to Stark, a debt restructuring would invite enormous problems. With a debt restructuring or re-profiling, Greece is likely to face a situation where it will not be able to gain access to the markets over a reasonable time span. However, if it is regained due to re-profiling or restructuring, Greece will have to pay higher risk premium in the near future. ..... Read More

EU authorities and the European Central Bank doesn’t share the same opinion with regard to Greece’s debt crisis.

According to a recent report in a UK newspaper, the EU authorities and the European Central Bank don’t express the same view point on how to solve the debt crisis in Greece. EU considers a soft restructuring and is in favor of extending the maturities of Greek debts. However, the ECB considers it as unworkable. This is because ECB is worried about the debt situation and thinks that it may erode fragile support for other peripheral nations, including Spain, Irish, Greek and Portuguese. Bond yields continue to be on high level.

Besides the Euro being choppy, investors cannot take a firm decision about the Dollar either. The greenback recovered to a particular extent, after FOMC was released. FOMC members would like to use interest rates for monetary policy...... Continued

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Inflationcould fall faster than the Bank of England’s prediction

The commodity prices have so far gone down by 9% from the peak point, earlier this year. Also, there is constant sliding situation in terms of prices. Hence, there is a possibility if inflation to fall faster than the Bank of England expects in future months within this year. Also, due to weak wages and job crisis, the people’s standard of living is getting squeezed.

The urban middle class is expanding in upcoming economist. This has created a major impact on a wide scale of commodities. The level of consumption in big emerging markets is presently fractions of those in advanced economies. There is still time to see things happening on a common note. Hence, the demand for commodities is expected to remain sturdy for quite some time. The economic recovery situation is going to move along throughout this year 2011. Hence, the commodity prices have been dropping lately.

Every year prices have been increasing and this summer it is going to increase to about 5%. However, the Bank of England is in no mood to raise interest rates with the present economic scenario. Last December, there has been a lot of heavy snow in UK and so the level of output has been flat over the past two quarters. It remained about 4%. Hence, the UK consumers are feeling the heat of high prices without any compensation from a hiring boom or increase in wages. Commodity prices are low, which is about 9%. Oil prices continue to move down. Hence, inflation is expected to fall faster than the Bank of England expectation. Also, based on the UK wage chart, wages are weak and jobs are not increasing in numbers. The standard of living is getting further tighter.   

According to the Bank of England, higher food and energy costs are temporary and this hike in cost will die down. Central Bank has forecasted that CPI will rise to 5% this year. Hence, there is a possibility of seeing a hike taking place in future. The currency remained stable with regard to the IMF managing Director Dominique Strauss- Khan being arrested on sexual assault charges. Strauss- Khan was supposed to attend the EU Finance Minister’s summit which is supposed to be held in Brussels. However, his place has now been replaced by Deputy MD Nemat Shafik.

The Euro recovered some of its losses and was trading above a seven – week low against the dollar currency. The positive output with regard to Euro happened because the European Finance Ministers agreed on a rescue package worth 78billion Euro for Portugal. However, nothing much was done for Greece’s debit crisis. Based on the meeting of European finance ministers, policy makers have come to an understanding that Greek’s sovereign debt load is unsustainable. According to last week, it was partly speculated that the original bail out for Greece could be widened in order to cover up its short fall in the year 2012 and 2013.

It is a known fact that Greece’s debt burden is unsustainable. EU leaders are hoping for some sort of voluntary restructuring or re-profiling of bonds to happen instead of extension of EU/IM loans or a hard restructuring even to take place. The idea of mechanisms being in place for an orderly restructuring to happen will not take place until the introduction of the ESM in 2013. 

Eurocontinues to be pressurized

Euro remains week with the speculation that Greece may have to restructure its debt. This Greece’s debt crisis further deepened after IMF chief Dominique Straurs Kahn was arrested for sexually assaulting a housekeeper in his hotel room. Mr. Straurs Kahn had boarded a flight to Europe in order to meet the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel for discussing in detail about how Europe and the IMF would respond to the bad economic situation in Greece. He was expected to attend the monthly meeting of finance ministers from the 17 nation currency block to have a discussion about the widening debt crisis. However, he was forced to appear in a Manhattan Court. Straurs-Kahn denied the charges made against him. But the Judge did not grant him bail.

It was presumed that with Straurs-Kahn being the head of International Monetary Fund, IMF would continue to support Europe. However, with Straurs-Kahn now being gone, this situation is doubtful. This is the worst time for the International Monetory Fund to be without a forceful European leader. There are now fresh concerns over Greece’s debt issues. Presently the possibility of the situation getting resolved sounds doubtful.

Greece is moving down under a mountain of debt. It is on the verge of asking for more help from European Union and International fund. We have to hope and see the outcome of the two day meeting of EU Finance ministers in Brussels held on Monday. The summit of finance ministers is expected to discuss Greece’s bailout. The meeting will also hold discussions about whether or not it is possible to avoid Greece defaulting on its debt. Greece needs to rework on its debt situation in the coming month.

Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner told congress officially that the US government hit the debt ceiling. He further said that he is likely retirement funds until Aug 2. This will be done in order to create room for the government for continuing to borrow in the debt markets. Tomothy Geithner also stated that as soon as the debt limit is increased, the funds will be made whole. He further said that Federal retirees and employees will be unaffected by the above mentioned actions. He urged congress once again to raise the country’s legal borrowing limit soon. According to him, this will protect the full faith and credit of the United States and it will avoid catastrophic economic consequences for citizens.

The Pound continues to be under pressure after the Bank of England brought down its growth forecast pushing back expectations for hiking the interest rate. With inflation concerns around Europe continuing to mount, all eyes will be on Wednesdays report. It is going to be with regard to Bank of England minutes, proving traders with a better overview of the committee standing situation on rates. Even though UK continues to have a sluggish growth, there will be mounting pressure on the committee as other European policy makers remain focused on addressing high rising inflation. A higher than forecasted inflation statistics is likely to be seen. You can then expect for a rate hike from the Central bank. This situation will then uplift the Sterling to a certain extent.

 

US Dollargained against most of the traded currencies

The US dollar has become stronger against most of the traded currencies. The main reason of the dollar being strengthened is because of renewed worries about Europe’s debt woes. There is a positive effect on the US Dollar against the euro as the 17 nation currency is hit by news about Greece’s speculating 60B bailout plan and Portugal’s preparation to receive a bailout package.

According to Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RBC wealth management, a stronger dollar can make it difficult for US corporations to complete overseas and thereby in turn, cut into profits. The Dollar had dominated over the past six decades. However, it is time now to reconsider the dollar’s historical position. In other words, in future, the dollar may not likely be the world’s preferred currency.

Although the dollar has become a questionable investment, central banks continue to buy and hold US dollars. The main reason is because traditionally US dollar has the capacity to bear market aftershocks and it is considered as “safe harbor” during the time of uncertainty. Even if Euro would be the next option, it still carries significant risk because of the emergency bailouts for the Euro zone nations. Also, the British Pound was considered as the global currency before the Dollar. But in today’s times it is not the case. 

Euro got a brief boosting support from Q1 GDP readings from Germany and France. Euro was under pressure during the entire last week and was kept low due to the concerns over Greece’s debt restructuring. Greece is considered as part of a fixed rate regime within the euro. Hence it cannot be devalued. Hence, the credit risk factor has to be reduced and US treasury allocation has to be increased across all portfolios. It was Die Welt who said that Germany insisted on restructuring of Greece’s debt. However, spokesman Christoph Steegmans stated during the interview that the German government is not aware about the plans for restructuring the Greek debt.

Investors are focusing on short – term changes with regard to the dollar. In recent times, stocks have been moving along with commodity prices. In fact, investors are now trying to find out if the recent decline in commodities is a signal towards weak US economic growth or it is just a temporary phase. According to the report of the government which was released on Friday, the consumer prices rose at an annual rate of 32% in April. The major bulk of increases have been coming from higher prices.

In today’s times, it is not so easy to rely on a particular currency because by anointing any single currency as the reserve currency leaves the investor to be at risk by facing exchange rate fluctuations. Due to an uncertainty, the investors are trying to shift into more defensive areas of the market which also includes sector such as health care, utilities and consumer discretionary stocks. Uncertainty has creep back into the minds of the investors and so they have turn into defensive mode. Such a trend will continue in the week ahead.

An Overviewof current Foreign Exchange Market

The Pound became weak after a Halifax survey revealed that the house prices had their biggest yearly fall in over a year. House prices fell -1.4% in the month of May when it was actually expected to increase to about 0.1% in April. Also, it was expected to see a fall of -3.0%. However, the quarterly rate revealed a fall of -3.7% up to April. The cause of the fall was caused by weak confidence in the economy. There were various other reasons for the fall such as negative wage growth, increasing levels of debt and inability to acquire credit.

The value of Sterling is a matter of concern for most businesses and households. Travelling abroad has become difficult because it has now become expensive. The main reason is due to the drop in value against other major currencies like the dollar and euro. However, UK exporters have accepted this weaker Pound situation because they have come to an understanding that this weaker Pound scenario makes their goods cheaper to foreign markets.  Economists consider this weakening of Sterling situation as much needed correction to the present UK’S trade imbalances.

The UK recovery continues to remain sluggish and fragile. Hence, the pound is not likely to bring a significant change in the market sentiment this week. Also, Bank of England faces rising price pressures while it maintains its recovery trend. Based on the interest rate expectations, the economic data will be predicted.

The Dollar moved ahead in strength because of the consequences of the following rumors of another sovereign debt crisis in Europe. It was also presumed that Greece might need to reform its debt or just abandon the single currency. Since Greece head threatened to leave the Euro, there was a reversal situation caused in the market. The US Dollar index was in a mess after the US data. However, the EU news gave a boost to close up 1.1%.

Since, there has been a slow down in the economy’s growth pace in the US this year, it is doubtful to consider the payroll’s growth of 200K+ to be sustainable. The latest payroll news is considered as good news. However, the fact remains that the jobless rate outcome will still persist. In other words, the unemployment level will still exist around 9% for quite some time.

Pound Vs Euro and US Dollar Currency Forecast: Results are bringing much-needed stability and momentum back to the market.

The trend is positive. The pound is holding its ground. It is a sign of relief for all those who were holding their breath out while making all sorts of assumptions about the near-future activities taking place around. The pound advanced and several expectations have been met on its way to gain an upper hand over its major counterparts. The news broke out when Bank of England announced its decision of increasing the rates. It became an occasion to celebrate the event with U.S Federal Reserve has again confirmed that they are going to keep the rates to its lowest level, it is closest to zero (zilch). People were feeling wee anxious as not much was going in their favor after last week’s decision of policy makers to keep the rates unchanged. It goes without saying that even market experts were under immense pressure following the count of votes rated as 6 to 3, which was surely not predicted by any of them. It raised alarming bells all over the market place.

It is confirmed news and everybody is highly excited over the fact that earlier we had achieved $1.67 mark to break the previous set record after a long wait of a year-and-half or so. It is a continuation of the good work done and another step taken in the same direction. The day’s proceeding came to an end with 0.2 percent advance made and monthly figures show the total advance of 3.9 percent. There is another point to be mentioned and is relatively important irrespective of its down-falling movement in the last five consecutive days. Sterling is losing its sheen versus the euro to 88.91 pence. We need to sit down and check the monthly statistics in order to find the exact data and results achieved in the process. It gained 0.8 percent in the market.

The dollar-pound exchange rate results were more than satisfactory over here. The market has shifted its focus to the news that Federal Reserve would not be in hurry to increase the rates as early as first quarter of the next year. Amongst the other important news, the U.K. Debt Management Office made an announcement of selling 167.5 billion pounds of debt this fiscal year. The UK currency is on the right track to build a stronger base for next level of activities to take place. The market reports show an impressive set of results and customers are again looking to do what they are best at. Gilts have also shown positive results given the kind of progress made in comparison to other major players in the industry. It is moving upwards with investors earning 1.2 percent this month.

The whole case-study emphasizes on the fact that proper details should be taken into account and followed with utmost sincerity. It makes an interesting subject to find out that how things would unfold in the next couple of days and months to come by. 

Arcus takes over Forth Ports with a massive offer of £760 million

 

Forth Ports (FPT .L) owns and operates 7 commercial ports throughout UK that are good profit generators. The company announced a significant 10% increase in annual profit in the year 2010 where its pretax profit was £36.6 million on revenues 5% higher at 181.9 million in 2010. According to experts the optimistic prediction for the annual profit of Forth Ports for the previous year was £35.6 million, where practically it crossed the limit and performed exceptionally well.

Arcus European Infrastructure fund posses 23.5% shares in the company. Forth Ports’ Chairman Mr. David Richardson said that till offer from Arcus will give a new opportunity for Forth Ports; shareholders to realize that this investment is at a fair price.

Previously an offer of £745 million was proposed to Forth Ports by Arcus but this was not convincing enough for the company as its shares have also risen up by 12% during the February where the business valued at a worth of around £735 million. After the acceptance of the proposal the company said that although the economic conditions of UK especially in trading is challenging at present, but since the ports have been enjoying good profits and conditions are predicted to become better soon as well, this will surely an encouraging decision for the management.

Inflation impacts the highest UK Household income fall since 1970s

 

A report generated by Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) claims that the people of UK have faced a drastic decrease in living standards for the last 30 years, because of the rapidly increasing inflation and unemployment throughout the region. The average household’s real income has decreased by 1.6% over the three years which contrastingly increased significantly even during the recession.

IFS report emphasized that the reasons for the fall in living standards were not only due to increase in unemployment in various sectors, but the decrease in interest rates from the saving also lead to this decrease. Moreover the tax and benefits that were changed and stagnating the real earnings pay after the eroding effects of inflation are also considered to be prominent factor for the cause.

Unfortunately according to experts the situation is not expected to resolve soon and even after the Government announcement of £111 billion austerity program to over the issue there would be further innovative steps required from the government to completely eliminate all the issues.

According to one of the experts from IFS, the household incomes are probably to level in 2013, where things are expected to become after and government program are most likely to take effect.

The problem of stagnant condition to pertain for sometime is the sluggish economic recovery and weak jobs in the market, where the workers are in no position to demand a pay increase due to the fear of over-target inflation and higher inflation rate. January’s VAT rise was one of the highest rise in Consumer Price Index (CPI) where it hit the margin of 4% pushing the cost of living still further.

Swiss based pharmaceutical company Novartis decreased that UK is implementing jobs cuts plan

 

Novartis is a pharmaceutical giant operating in many countries around the world. The company spokesperson said that particularly in UK the company is planning to cut jobs after which the jobs throughout UK would be reduced to 500 which were 950 in the previous year. This plan is a result of cut down of research and development plan of UK pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) industry.

The Novartis and Pfizer have been working on this plan and will continue to implement for the next two years as well. In February next year Pfizer is planning to completely close down its research and development facility in Kent that has about 2,400 employees working.

There have been significant changes in healthcare systems and the organizations are focusing on different cost effective and cost cutting strategy. UK investments have also shown a decline and innovative drugs are not emerging in the market even after the little investment in research and development sector of UK pharmaceutical industry.

Royal Bank of Scotland Paying high to its important staff

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has a total of £375m to 323 people who are renowned as their key staff. Although RBS declared £3.6bn loss in 2009 and declared £1.67bn loss in 2010 has come up with a different strategy to back their key employees and ensure success even though the company is incurring losses.

Although  most of the private companies in UK have been focusing on cost cutting strategy because of recession and low profits but RBS has brought an innovative strategy to cater the problems in a proactive manner that can improve the organization’s overall performance and productivity and to improve the profitability of the company.

Inflation expected to further increase

Inflation rate rose to 4% in the month of January from 3.7% in the month of December. However, the target inflation was 2%. Retail price index (RPI) also showed an increase in inflation of 5.1% from 4.8%. According to a survey conducted by Bank of England, almost 66% of the people believe that the inflation would further increase. This would be a threat for all those people who have been saving money and earning small interest rate of their savings as inflation would reduce the value of their savings.

Competition in the credit card becomes more intense

More and more banks have come up with different offers for customers to increase their use of credit cards and other services. Now because of intense competition, time length of 0% interest on the loan which customers switch from other cards has been extended to 20 months. This change has been in the spotlight and many financial groups and analysts have warned customers to remain cautious over such deals.

However, lenders are giving these special offers to only those customers having above average credit histories. According to Kevin Mountford from Moneysupermarket, “"If you fall outside of this category then you may find your options are more limited. Before applying for a credit card, consumers need to check their credit profile and make sure there is no adverse information that would jeopardize their chances of being accepted."

 

UK is experiencing an alarming situation in the unemployment sector, where the unemployment figure has raise to 27, 0000

UK is experiencing an alarming situation in the unemployment sector, where the unemployment figure has raise to 27, 0000 in only three months making a total to 2.53 million employed people. This unemployment figure is the highest since last 17 years where in 1996 the difference was not big as well. Another record of age demographics in unemployment was broken during this period as the unemployment among 16 to 24 years old people raised to 20.6% which was only 0.8% in the previous years. The 20.6% also includes the students who are now willing to job because of the high inflation and change in lifestyle and trends to earn money.Globally, the fresh graduate or new entrant age sector that is employed is considered to be 18 to 24 years bracket. In UK, this age bracket of 18 to 24 years has also unfortunately showed a rise in unemployment rate, where the percentage has reached to 18.3% which is again very high considering the average similar age demographic segment of 10%. These figures and facts were disclosed by ONS, where the research report also communicated that the average earning in January were 2.3% higher than what it was during January 2010. This is mainly because companies throughout UK have declared good bonus and profits and have showed some good progress in business, which are good signs and a sigh of relief for the unemployed people.The Wage growth in UK is higher than what is expected and according to the experts’ prediction, the Bank of England will not put pressure on the banks to raise their interest rates.

Job Cuts in UK Public Sector

Contradicting to the scenario of unemployment, the employment sector has experienced significant changes as well. The age demographics in the employment sector have changed, where companies have focused more on experienced professional rather than fresh market employees. A record employment of age bracket between 50 to 64 years has increased to 7.3 million, which includes 25,000 employment increases during the last three months. The Public sector in UK is more affected than government sector, there the employment of average age from 18 to 30 years feel by 45,000 as compared to government sector there it fell by 24,000. Although there have been about half a million job vacancies opened during the last three months but since the unemployment rate is very high and companies are more concerned about experienced professionals about one third of these vacancies are yet to be filled. UK’s Prime Minister, David Cameron admitted that the youth unemployment numbers are disappointing, however they have a mixed picture of employment and unemployment, however the government is making efforts to overcome the problem and come up with policies that can provide employment to the UK people.UK, Employment Minister, Chris Grayling has developed hopes that the situation will become better in the second half of 2011. He emphasized that the business are making progress and growing that will result in employment and the private sector will have substantial growth in the coming time.

Reports suggest that China has over taken the global art market of UK for the first time.

 

 

Reports suggest that China has over taken the global art market of UK for the first time. As stated by European Fine Art Foundation UK has recently slipped down to third position in the global market for antiques and arts. However US still continues the domination of this market with the shares of 37% and it remained the leader in 2010

According to British Art Market Federation which generally represents many leaders of UK says that current market share of UK are 22% in contrast to that of China which is 23% and the figures seems quite alarming. However UK stills leads to be the Europe’s biggest market leader as followed by France

The report further says that although the period from 2008 to 2010 remained to be crisis period for the UK arts industry, but still the industry seems to have recovered from this crisis period. it further says that art tax due to be extended in UK, Ireland, Netherlands and Austria further an attempt to damage the market and encouraging the vendors to sell their art elsewhere.

Pay plan for public sector senior revealed by Will Hutton

An independent review recently indicated that the pays for senior public servants should be based on their performance rather than subject to the cap imposed on them. The review by Government commissioned fair pay stated that at least 10% of the pay must be awarded to the public servants if the objectives were met

The review as conducted by Will Hutton also compared the link between the executive pay and the pay given to lowest paid staff. However he further said that pay level comparison should also be conducted by the public sector bodies and public limited companies. George Osborne the Chancellor then said that he will give the review careful consideration, however there was no pledge for implementing the proposed solution.

Benetton to increase the costs because of its profit reduction

Italian Fashion retailer Benetton operating worldwide has announced a low profit margin on the products throughout Europe during the year 2010. The increased costs of raw materials were mainly the factors that resulted in reduced profits. The outlet across Europe announced a net profit of 102m euros equal to £89m which is very less as compared to 2.1bn euros in the previous years.

Even through Benetton managed to grow good profits in other regions but particularly in Europe the revenue fell by 2.8%. The company is trying to plan some new strategies to cater the raw material costs problem and to increase the profits. The shares in Benetton have also fell by 3.4% in Milan and a strong growth of the brand is expected in near future. Currently the net debt of the company is 556m euros which were 486m euros in the previous year; this might be a good sign and opportunity for the coming years.

The UK market is experiencing a tough competition in fashion and clothing which is predicted to further increase as many global designers are entering into the UK market due to large amount of potential customers.