TPT May 2013

Global Marketplace

preventing a repetition of the sovereign debt crisis; and budget consolidation efforts in individual countries, notably Italy. › Consumer borrowing in the US rose in January by the most in five months as Americans took out more and bigger loans. Employment gains, rising stock prices and stable home values may be making Americans more willing to borrow, thus helping sustain the consumer spending that accounts for some 70 per cent of the national economy. Cheaper financing is also underpinning purchases of big-ticket items. The Federal Reserve said on 7March that non-revolving debt, which includes financing for cars and college tuition, climbed $16.2bn in January, on top of a revised-upward $15.1bn advance in December. › Canada’s central bank governor Mark Carney, preparing to exit that job to become governor of the Bank of England in July, told CTV News in Toronto (17 February) that he looks forward to bringing an outsider’s perspective to his new post. Mr Carney, who took over the Bank of Canada in 2008 and is widely credited with having shielded Canadians from the worst of the global recession, will be the first foreigner to run Britain’s central bank in its 318-year history. The 47-year-old Mr Carney has already attracted the notice of Britain’s tabloids but he said he was ready for the heightened scrutiny. “I think we have a very mature media culture [in Canada] that focuses on the right things, focuses on the issues,” he told his TV interviewer. “And I obviously prefer that. But I recognise that it’s a different environment.”

plane using the lithium-ion batteries had already begun at the headquarters plant in Toulouse, France. By making the battery switch early, the company said, it hoped to be able to stick to its schedule of delivering the first aircraft in the second half of 2014. Airbus said it would continue to study the lithium-ion technology as it moved forward with the A350’s development and would “take on board” any relevant findings that resulted from the investigation of the 787 incidents. Economic notes . . . › Tax incentives have helped spur record levels of investment in Britain’s offshore oil and gas sector, set to recover from more than a decade of declining production and boost UK government coffers in 2014. According to an annual report published 25 February by industry body Oil & Gas UK, investment in offshore oil and gas projects is forecast to rise to a record level of at least $19.6bn this year – up from $14.9bn in 2012, which at the time was the highest in more than 30 years. › Speaking in Berlin on German network ARD, European Central Bank (ECB) board member Joerg Asmussen said on 17 February that the euro zone was “in better shape now than 12 months ago” despite weak growth in the fourth quarter of 2012. Among the factors he credited for the improvement were “actions of the ECB that were within our mandate”; the European Union’s budget discipline treaty, aimed at

Dorothy Fabian, Features Editor (USA)

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May 2013