... the group of non-OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] nations.

With world output growth projected at 3.3% in 2013 and 3.7% in 2014, the forecast again points to a global recovery that is hesitant, below par, and uneven. 

NIESR summarises its projections thus:

• The world economy will grow by 3.3% this year and by 3.7% 2014, remaining below trend.
   
• In the developed world, divergence continues; the USA will grow just over 2% in each year, while the Euro Area zone remains in recession and will grow only about 1% in 2014.
   
• Unemployment remains very high in most countries, at depression era rates in some peripheral Euro Area countries.

This outlook reflects, especially in the advanced economies, weak demand resulting from several factors, especially continuing fiscal consolidation and deleveraging by private sectors, impaired credit intermediation in many cases, and significant policy uncertainties.

Of most concern is the continuing slump in the Euro Area, which is expected to remain in recession in 2013 and seems unlikely, on current policies, to experience better than weak growth next year.

In the USA, private sector demand has continued to be strengthened by a substantial improvement in the financial positions of banks and households, but this is partly offset by accelerated fiscal adjustment.

NIESR's growth projections for Japan have been raised to 2% per annum in 2013–14, taking into account the announcement of significant fiscal and monetary stimulus measures.

But the main drivers of global growth remain the developing and emerging market economies, especially in Asia; prospects seem good for a broad strengthening of growth in these economies this year and next, following the moderate slowdown experienced in 2012.

Read the original unabridged NIESR article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... foreign direct investment.

This is forecast to reach record levels in the period through to 2015, the Bank predicts, reaching US$54bn (£35.3bn) annually by 2015.

The report said strong economic growth in Africa had significantly reduced the extent of poverty in the sub-continent over the past decade.

The Bank's provisional figures show that the proportion of Africans living on less than $1.25 a day fell from 58% to 48.5% between 1996 and 2010

World Bank economist, Punam Chuhan-Pole comments: "If properly harnessed to unleash their full potential, these trends hold the promise of more growth, much less poverty, and accelerating shared prosperity for African countries in the foreseeable future." 

However, resource-rich countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Gabon were singled out as making less progress in combating poverty than other African countries with fewer natural resources.

Read the original unabridged BBC article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

 ... the deal would lock Europe into a single connective technology and has fewer benefits for the industry that will have to execute the strategy - the house builders.

Wall Street Journal blogger Anna Leach reports that the proposals draw on good practice from all over Europe, though the only country with mandatory broadband in new builds is Spain.

The new regulations will initially be submitted to the European Parliament, then to the twenty-seven individual member states — a process that normally takes around two years.

Telcos are predictably enthusiatic about the proposals. Says Tom Ruhan, chairman of the European Competitive Telecommunications Association: “The proposals to reduce the costs of deployment of fibre networks are very welcome.”

While a Vodafone spokesman said: “We welcome the Commission’s proposals which are pragmatic and urgently needed.”

The benefit to telcos is estimated by the EC to be €40-60 billion – the amount the Commission expects them to save as the new regulation reduces their civil engineering costs by 30%.

As a secondary benefit, European telcos will also efforlessly acquire hundreds of thousands of new customers.

Read the original unabridged WSJ.com article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... single big acquisition that "wouldn’t fit Bertelsmann’s risk profile”.

The company, which last year benefited from the best-selling book Fifty Shades of Grey, currently relies on Europe for 80% of its sales. Rabe, who took office at the beginning of 2012, is overhauling Bertelsmann’s portfolio with a push into music rights, education and emerging markets. 

Says Mr Rabe: “It is our clear objective to grow the company in the next couple of years. Assuming a little bit of tailwind from a recovery in Europe, we expect to grow to €17bn this year and €18bn in the next.”

Bertelsmann’s total global sales grew 4.5% to €16bn last year, Rabe added, although his forecast doesn’t include potential acquisitions.

Operating earnings before interest and taxes from continuing operations will remain at more than 10% of revenue in coming years even as the company invests in new digital products and reorganizes its legacy businesses such as printing.

Read the original unabridged Bloomberg.com article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... promising small and delivering big.

If Sir Martin remains true to form, his gloomy prognostications for the world economy will show WPP triumphing over adversity despite unpropitious global economic conditions between now and 2020.

Sorrell warned that 2013 will be another demanding year, with slow or stagnant growth in western continental Europe (excluding the UK) likely to continue for some time. He added: "We may well only be half way through a lost decade, post-Lehman."

Given that half a decade has already elapsed since Lehman's collapse in 2008, Sir Martin's forecast of a "lost decade" veers toward the obvious.

On a more pragmatic note, the WPP supremo sees the USA's budget deficit as the "elephant in the room" and last-minute attempts in the US Congress to deal with the problem on New Year's Eve "only succeeded in kicking the can further down the road".

Never averse to florid similes, Sorrell also considers the US deficit as the most threatening of his five so-called "grey swans".

In plain English the reference relates to the "known unknowns" affecting the global economic outlook (the converse of "black swans", which take the market by surprise).

Sir Martin's grey swans also include the Eurozone crisis, turmoil in the Middle East and a slowdown in fast-growing economies such as China, Brazil and India.

He is also unhappy at Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to stage a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union, which Sorrell sees as adding "further uncertainty" to the UK economy.

Read the original unabridged Guardian article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... revolutionize the way we make almost everything.”

As New York Times blogger Nick Bilton observed: "Mr Obama has pushed new technologies before, like solar and wind power, as remedies for our nation’s [manufacturing] problems, and those attempts have only revived the debate about the limitations of government industrial policy.

"But this one shows more promise. The question is, can the United States get a foothold in manufacturing one 3-D printer at a time?

According to Hod Lipson, an associate professor and the director of the Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University, the answer is an emphatic 'yes'. 

“3-D printing is worming its way into almost every industry, from entertainment, to food, to bio and medical applications.”

But it won’t necessarily directly create manufacturing jobs, except perhaps for the printers themselves. Dr Lipson warns.

The technology “is not going to simply replace existing manufacturing anytime soon.” Nonetheless he believes that 3-D printing will give rise to new businesses.

“The bigger opportunity in the US is that it opens and creates new business models that are based on this idea of customization.”

Read the original unabridged New York Times article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... unite the USA, the world's largest economy, with four other 'top ten' nations: Germany, the UK, France and Italy.

It would also help defuse the long running rift between the US and EU over the free flow of information across borders.

This is an increasingly important priority for US multinational mammoths like Google, Facebook and Amazon but could be hard for EU members France and Germany to accept because of privacy concerns.

The USA and European Union already enjoy the largest economic relationship in the world - albeit (according to Reuters) "one of the most complicated".

Acknowledging that negotiations will be tough, Representative Dave Camp, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, welcomed President Obama's initiative. "A strong, comprehensive trade and investment agreement with the EU has the potential to create significant good-paying jobs for Americans," said Camp.

Mr Camp and the Senate Finance Committee leaders also said they planned to push this year for renewal of "trade promotion authority," a law that expired in 2007 that allowed the White House to submit trade deals to Congress for a straight yes-or-no vote without any amendments.

Such legislation has long been considered essential in persuading other countries to put their best offers on the table in trade talks with the United States.

Read the original unabridged Reuters article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... the United States and the United Kingdom.

In the UK, however, the CLIs point to "slightly weaker"growth compared to last month's assessment. Elsewhere the indicators suggest:

• In the Euro Area as a whole, and in particular in Italy and Germany, the CLIs point to a stabilisation in growth prospects. In France, however, growth is expected to remain weak.
   
• In China and India, the CLIs point to growth below trend compared with more positive signals in last month's assessment.
   
• In Canada and Russia the CLIs continue to point to growth below trend.
   
• In Japan and Brazil, signs of improved growth are emerging.

The unabridged OECD report including charts, and notes on methodology can be accessed here.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... EU citizens' data stored on US servers is not protected from access by a third party.

According to a report commissioned by the EU and carried out by the Centre for European Policy Studies, America's so-called Patriot Act gives US authorities the legal right to access foreign citizens' data stored within US borders.

Commenting on the report, European Parliament member Jan Philipp Albrecht insists that "this study is absolutely not about generating panic." 

According to Mr Albrecht, most users don't even know where their data is stored. 

"It's a simple fact that the US data protection law only applies to US citizens." "But there are special laws that target the surveillance of non-US citizens", he added.

"This happens when sensitive data from big companies, like Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook, are made available to US authorities for investigations." 

Thilo Weichert, data protection commissioner for the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein is also concerned at the power wielded by the US over EU citizens' data.

Mr Weichert has been following the implications of this development closely for more than two years, while pushing Facebook to allow its users to remain anonymous.

"The long arm of US law stretches as far as Europe," he said.

Read the original unabridged Deutche Welle article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... the anticipated recovery predicted by the bank last year is now expected to occur "closer to the end of the first quarter and into the second quarter of 2013, rather than beginning a little earlier."

Moreover, the World Bank warns that a drawn-out political battle in the United States over raising the government's borrowing limit and spending cuts could hit growth, spark a loss of confidence in the US dollar and unnerve financial markets.

In other quarters, there is also growing concern that the USA's financial links with the so-called 'petro-dollar' could spell major problems for that nation's economy.

As for the developing countries, which last year grew by 5.5% (their slowest pace in a decade) the Bank cut its 2013 forecast from the 5.9% predicted in June 2012. It now expects that growth in these countries will slowly pick up, reaching 5.7% in 2014 and 5.8%.

Read the original unabridged IndiaTimes article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.