Stoil Topalov

American industrial average Dow Jones fell 1.6 per cent, closing last week’s trade at 8539.7 points. Across the Atlantic, London’s FTSE 100 suffered a rare loss of value in the last weeks, closing the week 1 per cent down at 4355.9 points. The mood in Asia was not much different with the Nikkei 225 closing 3 per cent down, ending its 12 week upcoming. In Athens, the Stock Exchange ended the week’s trade at 2233.9 points, recording a loss of 6.5 per cent – one of the biggest slumps since the beginning of 2009.

The huge loss of value at the Athens Stock Exchange was caused by the bad economic climate in the country and the fact that some 3000 workers above 50 years of age will lose their jobs. Initial plans of the governments included a temporary termination for the above mentioned employees, but this was later changed to a “voluntary” mutual termination after the governing party’s loss at the Euro elections. As a result, the average number of employees in a train will be decreased from the current four to three workers (as a point of reference, in most Western-European countries, the number of employees serving a train is two).

Starting July, Greek Banks will introduce a new system used for analyzing loan applications called <Tyresias>. The new system will rate applicants on a scale from 0 to 600, and will be used by bank employees to assess and decide whether to grant the loan or not. The system is introduced with the aim to minimize the risk exposure of banks and lower interest rates. Interest on credit cards is expected to fall from an average of 17 per cent (for prime candidates) to 14 per cent.

Despite the unstable performance of Stock Exchanges around the world last week, Reuters has announced that the International Monetary Fund will raise its expectations for the World Economy growth from the current 1.9 to 2.4 per cent. Representatives from the organization declared that governments around the world are taking very adequate measures to counteract the recession and developed economies like the USA, Japan and China have already started their recovery.

The World economy will be one of the main discussion topics at the following meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The meeting will take place on the 27^th and 28^th of June on the Greek island of Corfu and will be fully covered with images and reviews of the most significant decisions taken by the GRReporter team.