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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe’s economy is likely to rally in the second quarter as an acceleration in COVID-19 vaccine roll-out allows governments to gradually lift lockdown restrictions, the European Commission’s vice president for the economy Valdis Dombrovskis said Monday.
FILE PHOTO: European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis attends a news conference on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine export transparency, in Brussels, Belgium January 29, 2021. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/Pool
“That is indeed our expectation, that with proper calibration of restrictive measures and the rolling out of mass vaccination we will be able to gradually return to economic growth. Indeed we expect already a better economic outlook already in the second quarter of the year,” he said.
Nigeria will need to increase its value-added tax (VAT) rate to at least 10% by 2022 and 15% by 2025 from 7.5% now to boost revenues after it recovers from a recession, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday.
Major U.S. stock indexes registered all-time closing highs on Monday amid optimism over U.S. fiscal stimulus, and bitcoin jumped after Tesla revealed it had purchased $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency and would soon accept it as a form of payment.
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MADRID, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Spain’s government aims to outline in the coming weeks a set of measures to bolster corporate solvency, possibly including haircuts on state-backed loans as well as direct state aid to help smaller firms weather the COVID-19 pandemic, sources said.
The European Commission has extended until the end of 2021 a temporary framework for state aid it adopted last March to enable governments to support their economies through the coronavirus pandemic.
The EU has also allowed the conversion of some repayable instruments into direct grants until the end of 2022.
Treasury head Pablo de Ramón-Laca also told state broadcaster RTVE on Monday the state was working on transforming part of the state-backed credit, known as ICO loans, extended so far into an as yet unspecified type of solvency support.