Irish Consumer Sentiment weakened in February. The overall KBC Bank Ireland/ESRI Consumer Sentiment Index stood at 44.2 in February, compared to a figure of 49.6 in January. The corresponding figure for February 2008 was 63.5. The 3-month moving average decreased to 48 from the 48.2 recorded in January. The 3-month moving average stood at 64.4 in February 2008.
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Principal news stories from the Irish Independent, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Financial Times and New York Times.
A European Union panel on Wednesday published recommendations for an overhaul of the financial regulation system but the proposed structure has been criticised as unwieldy.
For many companies, the ability to innovate is the most important predictor of future growth, but innovation capacity is not evenly distributed globally; some regions are more innovative than others.Fertile ground: cultivating a talent for innovation, a new report written by the Economist Intelligence Unit and supported by the Government of Ontario, Canada, draws on insight from businesses based in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia to explore what qualities make a location ripe for innovation.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) plans a substantial increase in investments in 2009 as a direct response to the impact of the global financial crisis on the economies of Eastern Europe, after making a net loss in 2008 of €602 million. The bank warned that the economic crisis “is threatening to throw nearly two decades of economic reform into reverse” in the region.
Switzerland’s Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz and current Federal President, has launched a special task force to try to defend banking secrecy in the face of mounting international pressure as the US steps up pressure on Swiss banking giant UBS over taxes for an additional 35,000 accounts of American citizens, which hadn’t been disclosed in an original investigation.
Despite seeing rents slip by 4%, Hong Kong leapt ahead of London’s West End as home of the world’s most expensive office space in 2008.
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The Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, TD today announced that he intends to bring forward legislation to exempt from the €10 per flight Air Travel Tax (with effect from the commencement date of the tax, 30 March 2009) those airports that had less than 50,000 departing passengers in the previous calendar year. Currently, the exemption threshold for airports included in the Air Travel Tax is 10,000 departing passengers in the previous year. Currently it exemption will apply to Donegal Airport, and Sligo Airport.