The Russian central bank has agreed to cut its refinancing rate from 8.75 to 8.5 per cent, effective February 24. The main one-day repo rate is down from 6 to 5.75 per cent.
The rouble has been strengthening in recent days, possibly leading to a $2bn sale of the currency by Bank Rossii yesterday. Read more
A troubling chart from Thomson Reuters this morning, showing Spain facing $203.7bn maturing syndicated debt in the coming six years. That is roughly a fifth of the country’s annual gross domestic product (which was $261.5m for Q4 last year). Italy is second with $95.9bn over the same period. Greece – orange on the chart – is almost insignificant in context.
Chart courtesy of Thomson Reuters; source Thomson Reuters LPC/DealScan
Maturing loans are significant as new debt will be needed to plug the gap. Countries perceived as risky will pay a higher ‘new issue premium’, as a mooted deal in Greece is currently showing. Two questions: who will be these countries’ creditor (China?)? And what are the figures for the UK & US (I’m working on this one)? Read more
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Chris Giles has been the economics editor of the Financial Times since 2004. Based in London, he writes about international economic trends and the British economy. Before reporting economics for the Financial Times, he wrote editorials for the paper, reported for the BBC, worked as a regulator of the broadcasting industry and undertook research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. RSS
Michael Steen, Frankfurt bureau chief, covers the ECB and the eurozone's economies. He joined the Financial Times in 2007 as Amsterdam correspondent and later worked as a front page news editor in London. Before joining the FT, he spent nine years as a correspondent at Reuters, mostly in foreign postings that included a previous stint in Frankfurt, as well as Moscow, Kiev and central Asia. He read German and Russian at Cambridge.RSS
Robin Harding is the FT's US economics editor, based in Washington. Prior to this, he was based in Tokyo, covering the Bank of Japan and Japan's technology sector, and in London as an economics leader writer. Robin studied economics at Cambridge and has a masters in economics from Hitotsubashi University, where he was a Monbusho scholar. Before joining the FT, Robin worked in asset management and banking. RSS
Ralph Atkins, capital markets editor, has been writing for the Financial Times for more than 20 years following an economics degree from Cambridge. From 2004 to 2012, Ralph was Frankfurt bureau chief, watching the European Central Bank and eurozone economies. He has also worked in Bonn, Berlin, Jerusalem and Brussels. RSS
Claire Jones is Money Supply economics team writer, based in London. Before joining the Financial Times, she was the editor of the Central Banking journal and CentralBanking.com. Claire studied philosophy and economics at the London School of Economics. RSS
