LISBON (Reuters) – Banks in bailed-out Portugal need an extra 8 billion euros (6.82 billion pounds) in capital, based on conservative tests of their financial health, Moody’s Investors Service said on Wednesday.

Pepa Mori, the rating agency’s lead analyst for Portuguese banks, said non-performing loans had risen more than expected because of the country’s deepening recession, justifying a gloomier set of assumptions.

LISBON, April 9 (Reuters) – Even in the depths of recession,
southern Europe is showing a sneaking regard for the
single-minded way that Margaret Thatcher rammed through some of
the very policies that are now putting the region on the rack.

The free-market principles of the former British prime
minister, who died on Monday aged 87, are too radical for those
on the euro zone periphery – and elsewhere – who instinctively
look to the state for a helping hand.

TORRES VEDRAS, Portugal (Reuters) – For Portugal to succeed in ambitions to reindustrialise its shrinking, debt-laden economy, it will not be down to the revival of mass manufacturing but to the sprouting of high-tech start-ups such as UAVision.

As the name Unmanned Aerial Vehicles suggests, drones mounted with cameras are a mainstay for the small engineering firm. Clients include big farmers who want to monitor conditions in their fields. One drone has been adapted to film camel racing in Dubai.

TORRES VEDRAS, Portugal (Reuters) – For Portugal to succeed in ambitions to reindustrialize its shrinking, debt-laden economy, it will not be down to the revival of mass manufacturing but to the sprouting of high-tech start-ups such as UAVision.

As the name Unmanned Aerial Vehicles suggests, drones mounted with cameras are a mainstay for the small engineering firm. Clients include big farmers who want to monitor conditions in their fields. One drone has been adapted to film camel racing in Dubai.

LONDON (Reuters) – ‘Historic’ is an overused word. But if the Bank of Japan meets expectations and embarks this week on a radical policy shift to crush deflation, the meeting will go down as, well, historic.

Because of gently falling prices, Japan has not grown in nominal terms for two decades, reducing its relevance for the global economy.

LISBON (Reuters) – Austerity is grinding Portugal down. The economy is adjusting to past excesses and flourishing firms are not hard to find. But the overall picture, mirrored across southern Europe, is of a people losing confidence in the future.

With domestic demand depressed by deep public spending cuts and a slump in investment, the risk is that improving exports alone will not be enough to restore growth. That would trap the government in a vicious circle, forever needing fresh cuts to meet its deficit and debt targets.

LISBON (Reuters) – Austerity is grinding Portugal down. The economy is adjusting to past excesses and flourishing firms are not hard to find. But the overall picture, mirrored across southern Europe, is of a people losing confidence in the future.

With domestic demand depressed by deep public spending cuts and a slump in investment, the risk is that improving exports alone will not be enough to restore growth. That would trap the government in a vicious circle, forever needing fresh cuts to meet its deficit and debt targets.

LONDON (Reuters) – The messy deal to bail out Cyprus has averted the latest threat to the break-up of the euro but at the cost of raising new questions about the single currency’s long-term viability.

Savers in other euro zone banks appear so far to be taking the freezing of balances over 100,000 euros in Cyprus’s two biggest lenders in their stride. Perhaps they judge that events in a tiny, far-away island with outsize banks and a reliance on deposits from Russian oligarchs hold little relevance for them.

LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) – The messy deal to bail out
Cyprus has averted the latest threat to the break-up of the euro
but at the cost of raising new questions about the single
currency’s long-term viability.

Savers in other euro zone banks appear so far to be taking
the freezing of balances over 100,000 euros in Cyprus’s two
biggest lenders in their stride. Perhaps they judge that events
in a tiny, far-away island with outsize banks and a reliance on
deposits from Russian oligarchs hold little relevance for them.

LISBON, March 24 (Reuters) – No matter how Cyprus’s
financial drama ends, its troubles show yet again that rich
countries enfeebled by the great financial crisis remain a weak
link in the world economy.

By comparison, emerging markets are not only looking
stronger but are also contributing more consistently to global
growth.