Indonesia's central bank cut its key interest rate for the first time since July 2005, after six increases since August. The central bank wants to prevent growth from slowing for the first time in five years. Bank Indonesia lowered the rate by 25 basis points to 12.5%. Indonesia's consumer prices increased 15.4% year-on-year in April 2006 after increasing 15.7% year-on-year in the previous month. It was the smallest gain in prices since September 2005. The central bank expects inflation to fall to between 7% and 8% by the end of the year.
Vietnam’s Bank for Foreign Trade (Vietcombank) is scheduled to list its convertible bonds, first issued last year, on the securities market next month, said the bank's general director, Vu Viet Ngoan. Ngoan said Vietcombank was now finalising documentation required for the bond listing to submit to the State Securities Commission. Vietcombank issued nearly1.37 trillion Vietnamese dong (US$86 million) of convertible bonds late last year, that sold out in just two days. The move is a bid to improve the bank’s debt ratio ahead of its flotation early next year. Vietcombank's April capital holdings stood at 146 trillion dong ($9.125 billion), up 1.8 per cent from last year.
Argentina’s financial sector will grow faster pace than the overall economy for the second consecutive year. In 2005 the financial sector grew 17.4% against 9.2% growth of the economy. According to consultancy Econométrica, Argentina’s financial sector accumulated profits of 784 million pesos, equal to an annualized Return on Assets (ROA) of 2.2% of net assets, higher than the 150 million pesos and the 0.4% ROA reported in the same period of 2005.
Venezuela has proposed the establishment of a Monetary Fund for Latin America to boost the region’s economies without the political requirements of the International Monetary Fund, Venezuela's Finance Minister, Nelson Merentes, said yesterday. The idea came from the profits that Venezuela gained by buying Argentina’s public debt. Venezuela bought $2.2 billion in Argentine bonds and earned over $119 million by re-selling them to 29 banks.
Czech state-run power producer CEZ has raised its bid to buy Romanian state-run power distributor Electrica Muntenia Sud, CEZ said in a press release today. The company declined to disclose the price it has offered for the two-thirds stake. Electrica has more than a million customers in Bucharest and two adjacent districts.
Its neighbour, Electrica Oltenia, has been owned by CEZ group since last year.
Acquisitions in Bulgaria and Romania have almost doubled the number of CEZ's end-customers to 6.8 million.
Oil output in Azerbaijan is expected to increase to 60 million tonnes in 2008, Azerbaijan’s President Ilkham Aliyev said at a closed government meeting on Friday. This includes 50 million tonnes of oil produced by Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), which develops the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field in the Caspian Sea. This year, Azerbaijan is expected to produce a record 30 million tonnes of oil, up from 22 million tonnes in 2005. AIOC is an international consortium. Partners include BP Azerbaijan with a 34.1% stake, Azeri state oil and gas company Socar with 10%, Norway’s Statoil with 8.6%, and ExxonMobil with 8%.