Financial economics

Greece seems to be on its way out of the recession after international agency Fitch raised its rating for the country to B from B- with a stable outlook.

Another agency, Standard&Poor's made on Friday a similar move for Spain, another Southern European country severely affected by the debt crisis. Madrid's debt rating is now BBB, up from BBB-, which was just above junk status.

Fitch ratings agency has upgraded Greece's sovereign debt rating by one notch, citing the country's improved deficit figures.

Although still deep in junk status, Friday's upgrade on Greek bonds, from B- to B, was a boost for the country that has been struggling through a devastating financial crisis for the past four years.

By Nikos Chrysoloras

Greece’s credit rating will be increased one level by Fitch Ratings, which cited an improving economic and fiscal outlook for the country that sparked Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

By Foo Yun Chee

European Union antitrust regulators charged Europe's biggest bank HSBC, US peer JPMorgan and France's Credit Agricole on Tuesday with rigging financial benchmarks linked to the euro, exposing them to potential fines.

The European Commission also said it would charge broker ICAP soon for suspected manipulation of the yen Libor financial benchmark.

By Vangelis Mandravelis

The selection of the state properties to enter the securitization process begins on Tuesday as the Public Properties Company’s governing board is expected to approve the tender for the contractors to manage all pending issues related to the title deeds of some 3,000 properties.

 PwC recommends debt write-off and shutdown of 650 ‘zombies’

By Evgenia Tzortzi

Restructuring the Greek business sector will require some 25 billion euros for the viable enterprises to stand out from the unsustainables, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates in a report presented on Monday in Athens.

 Investors may be better off taking the medium-to-long term view on the economy regardless of politics

By Dimitris Kontogiannis

 More public and private sector workers are considering an early exit over fears of regulatory changes

By Christina Kopsini

By Evgenia Tzortzi

The local insurance market is bracing for a challenging summer as the Bank of Greece has decided to force all of the sector’s companies to take part in stress tests to be conducted by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) this fall.

 If measures are taken to ease the debt, there should be no need for primary surpluses to reach 4.5 pct of GDP

By Sotiris Nikas

The government is planning to raise the issue of changing the fiscal targets when talks on the sustainability of the Greek debt begin at the end of August, in an effort to loosen fiscal policy after a long period of austerity.