A stress test on the health of the banking system in debt-stricken Greece has been postponed to allow the authorities more time to prepare, the Financial Times reported yesterday.
The newspaper said the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank agreed with Greece’s central bank to delay testing the solvency of the bank sector by one month to the end of next month. In May, the three put together a 110 billion euro (US$140 billion) rescue package for Athens to save it from default, with the government in turn adopting draconian austerity measures to repair its strained public finances.
The Financial Times said the delay in the test means that the banks’ nine-month results can be assessed, along with a cash call next month of 1.7 billion euros by National Bank of Greece (NBG), the country’s largest lender.
The report quoted an unnamed senior Greek banker as saying that “a successful offering by NBG would boost investor confidence ... It would also accelerate mergers and acquisitions already under discussion.”
Greece offers 300 million euros of three-month bills today, after selling more than 1 billion euros last week, as the government tests how far it has gone in restoring its credibility on the markets after the country’s near collapse in May.
While Greece has been able to raise money from the markets, it has also had to pay very high rates of return to get it and the key issue will be whether it can reduce its borrowing costs.
The EU carried out stress tests on 91 major EU banks in July, with most judged to have passed despite some criticism that the testing was not rigorous enough.
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
Taiwan must invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to keep abreast of the next technological leap toward automation, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said at the luanch ceremony of Taiwan AI and Robots Alliance yesterday. The world is on the cusp of a new industrial revolution centered on AI and robotics, which would likely lead to a thorough transformation of human society, she told an event marking the establishment of a national AI and robotics alliance in Taipei. The arrival of the next industrial revolution could be a matter of years, she said. The pace of automation in the global economy can
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,
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