Reuters News

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BERLIN/ATHENS, July 26 (Reuters) - Officials working for euro zone finance ministers will sign off the payment of the next batch of rescue loans to Greece on Friday and it will be disbursed following approval in individual member states on Monday, euro zone sources said on Friday.

Following delays, Greece on Thursday adopted the last piece of legislation the international lenders required to unlock 5.8 billion euros from the euro area, its national central banks and the International Monetary Fund. ID:L6N0FV2VE

The deputies of the Eurogroup of finance ministers are holding a conference call at 0830 GMT on Friday to unlook the payment.

"All prior actions were implemented. This means we can approve," said one official.

Germany this week postponed signing off on the disbursement of Greece's next tranche of bailout aid until next Monday to ensure conditions are met, a government document shows, but officials said that was now mere formality.

(Reporting by Annika Breidthardt, Renee Maltezou, Jan Strupczewski and Martin Santa; Editing by Madeline Chambers)

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BERLIN, July 29 (Reuters) - The number of investors who think a country will leave the euro zone soon has dropped by two thirds in the year since the head of the bloc's central bank promised to safeguard the currency, a survey published on Monday showed.


The July poll of 888 investors by German research group Sentix showed 23.75 percent of participants foresaw at least one state quitting the 17-nation bloc within the next year.
Last July's euro break-up index reading was 73 percent.


That survey coincided with the pledge by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi to do "whatever it takes" to save the euro.


"The fears of investors, which were expressed in that high July 2012 figure, prompted Draghi to go on the offensive and the index fell significantly in the months after his announcement, so you can see it had a real effect," Manfred Huebner, managing director of Sentix, told Reuters.


However, economic stresses in the euro zone remain significant. Sentix's most recent breakup reading rose slightly from June and the risk of contagion hit a record high.


Draghi gave his message of support last July as Spain and Italy faced rising pressure on financial markets and Greece held fraught meetings with international lenders after failing to stick to economic targets set under its bailout.


His promise calmed investors and led six weeks later to the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme, under which the ECB conditionally offered to buy unlimited amounts of bonds from struggling states. The OMT programme has yet to be tapped.


A political crisis in Portugal and concerns about possible snap elections there drove the Sentix index on euro zone break-up around 4 percentage points on the month in July. The percentage of investors expecting the country to leave the euro zone doubled from 2.66 percent in June to 5.38 percent.


Sentix also said the risk of contagion hit an all-time peak of 43.55 percent.


"If investors were worried especially about Greece in July 2012, we have Cyprus since March 2013 and now, with Portugal, (there are) three states that hang in the balance should push come to shove," Sentix said in a statement.


(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by John Stonestreet)

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MUMBAI, July 29 (Reuters) - The Reserve Bank of India said on Monday it did not accept any bid at the 10 billion rupees ($168.35 million) auction of 1.44 percent 2023 inflation-linked government bonds.


The central bank said there was no devolvement of the inflation-linked bonds on primary dealers.


India's 10-year benchmark bond yield IN071623G=CC fell 2 basis points to 8.12 percent after the auction results. ($1=59.4 rupees)


(Reporting by Shamik Paul, Neha Dasgupta and Swati Bhat; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)

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* EU says plan too soft on executive pay, cost cutting, bond holders
* Shares fall 2 percent as bank's recovery seen delayed


(Adds details on EU concerns, analyst comment)


MILAN, July 29 (Reuters) - The European Commission is demanding that Italy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena BMPS.MI beef up a restructuring plan before it approves a 4 billion euro ($5.3 billion) state bailout for the scandal-hit bank, the Financial Times reported on Monday.


Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia has told Italy that the proposed restructuring plan for the 500-year-old lender was too soft on executive pay, cost-cutting and treatment of creditors, the paper said, citing a letter from Almunia.


A spokesman for the EU Commission said it would not comment on leaks. No comment was immediately available from the Italian economy ministry or the bank, which is at the centre of a judicial probe over loss-making derivatives deals carried out by its former management.


The FT cited Almunia as telling Italian Economy Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni that without urgent changes he would launch a full-blown EU probe, a six-month process that could lead to imposed penalties or the forced repayment of the state loans,.


Monte dei Paschi, Italy's third biggest lender, received the state bailout earlier this year to plug a capital shortfall but the EU still has the right to reject the plan, potentially tying the bank up in process or even forcing it to pay the money back.


Almunia said on July 17, a day after the letter cited in the Financial Times, that he was in talks with Italy over the bank's restructuring but no agreement had been reached yet.
The report weighed on the bank's shares, which fell 2 percent to 0.22 euros by 0836 GMT.


"The news is negative because a negative opinion from the European Union risks slowing down the recovery of the bank," said ICBPI analyst Marco Sallustio in a note, adding he expected Monte dei Paschi to modify its restructuring plan when it announces first-half results on Aug. 7.


The bank has already announced 4,600 job cuts, the closure of 400 branches and a 1 billion euro capital increase to be launched next year as it tries to rebuild its finances.
Chairman Alessandro Profumo and CEO Fabrizio Viola have refused to say what additional measures were included in the restructuring plan they sent to Brussels last month, although sources have told Reuters the size of the capital increase could be doubled to 2 billion euros.


The FT said that in his letter Almunia disputed as exaggerated an estimate from Saccomanni that 5,000 jobs would be lost if the bank were forced to comply with conditions forcing it to axe its proprietary trading operations and gradually write down its sovereign exposure.


Another point of concern was the proposed continuation of discretionary coupon payments to certain bondholders.


These are likely to include the bank's top investor, a charitable foundation with close links to local politicians which has had to write down the value of its stake in the bank by 4 billion euros over the past two years. ($1 = 0.7539 euros)


(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Additional reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Patrick Graham)

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ATHENS, July 29 (Reuters) - Data on Greek producer price inflation in June

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* Pound edges up after UK lending data shows improvement
* But traders cautious before BoE meeting on Thurs
* Inflation Report on Aug. 7 also a risk factor

* Caution as BoE seen announcing forward guidance in Aug


By Jessica Mortimer


LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Sterling edged higher against a broadly weaker dollar on Monday, underpinned by further signs of improvement in the UK economy, though gains were expected to be limited ahead of a Bank of England meeting this week.


Figures showed lending to small and medium-sized British firms grew at the fastest pace on record in June while money supply growth picked up. ID:nL9N0E2041

But traders were wary because the BoE, under new governor Mark Carney, is expected to lay out plans for forward guidance of monetary policy which could weigh on the pound.


A statement accompanying the bank's decision on monetary policy on Thursday could provide some details on its forward guidance policy, although a fuller outline will not come until next week's Quarterly Inflation Report. No changes to interest rates or quantitative easing are expected this week.


The pound GBP=D4 rose 0.15 percent to $1.5405, edging near a one-month high of $1.5435 struck on Thursday.


But Nawaz Ali, market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions, said concerns about the BoE policy outlook would outweigh any firmer UK data.


"A more dovish and more unfamiliar Bank of England policy framework is probably what the market is expecting and this should prove damaging for sterling."


The pound was also helped by a broadly lower dollar, which was weak on concerns the U.S. Federal Reserve could signal it intends to keep rates low for some time at a meeting this week.


Sterling remained weak against the euro, which was steady at 86.25 pence EURGBP=D4 and close to a peak of 86.435 pence reached on Thursday.


More gains for the euro could see it target a four-and-a-half month peak of 87.12 pence, hit in mid-July, although analysts said caution before this week's raft of central bank meetings was likely to keep major currencies within a range.


The European Central Bank also meets on Thursday.


(Editing by Susan Fenton)

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BEIJING, Aug 8 (Reuters) - China's national railway operator will increase its annual investment in fixed assets by 10 billion yuan ($1.63 billion) to 660 billion yuan, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.


China Railway Corporation, a state-owned entity set up in March to take over the defunct railway ministry's businesses, completed 261.7 billion yuan of investment in the first seven months, up 1.6 percent from the year-earlier period, the news agency said.


The announcement of the extra investment comes as China's government has pledged to speed up railway investment to help shore up the slowing economy.


The government has also stepped up efforts to diversify funding channels to build railways, especially in the western regions. ID:nL4N0FU2U3


The cabinet had earlier said it would launch a railway development fund, with initial money from the central government while also trying to attract capital from the private sector.


Xinhua did not provide details on the sources of funding for the investment. It also said the railway company would add 5,500 km (3,400 miles) of lines this year to bring the total length in service to more than 100,000 km (62,000 miles) by the end of this year.


China established the rail company following the government's decision to dissolve the scandal-plagued railway ministry.


($1 = 6.1192 Chinese yuan)


(Reporting by Aileen Wang and Jonathan Standing; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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MUMBAI, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The Reserve Bank of India did not get any bids at its special repo auction for banks to lend to mutual funds.


The special repo auction was held at 10.25 percent.


(Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

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* May jobless rate climbs to 27.6 pct, up 16.3 pct vs May 2012
* Youth jobless rate at 64.9 pct



ATHENS, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Greece's jobless rate hit a new record high of 27.6 percent in May, official national data showed on Thursday as the country staggers under austerity linked to its international bailout.


Record joblessness is a nightmare for Greece's two-party coalition government as it scrambles to hit fiscal targets and show there is light at the end of the tunnel after years of unpopular tax rises and cuts to wages and pensions.


Unemployment rose to 27.6 percent from an upwardly revised 27.0 percent reading in April, according to data from statistics service ELSTAT and was more than twice the average rate in the euro zone which stood at 12.1 percent in June.


The latest reading was the highest since ELSTAT began publishing monthly jobless data in 2006.


Greece and Spain have been hit with similar levels of sky-high unemployment, with latest Eurostat data showing seasonally adjusted unemployment in June at 26.9 percent for Greece and 26.3 percent in Spain.


Spain itself does not publish monthly jobless figures directly comparable to Greece's own data, but Madrid's quarterly data shows its rate peaked at 27.2 percent in the first three months of this year.


"Increased employment in tourism cannot offset the restructuring in many sectors of the economy and continuing weak demand," said economist Nikos Magginas at National Bank.


However, he said improving exports and a strong tourism season would help to contain the further rise in joblessness expected this year.


Tourism accounts for about 17 percent of Greece's economic output and one in five jobs. Revenues are seen rising 10 percent in 2013, to 11 billion euros, on the back of an expected record 17 million visitors.


Data showed that those aged 15 to 24 remained the hardest-hit as the jobless rate for this age group registered 64.9 percent.


With the economy suffering its sixth straight year of recession and 1.38 million people officially without jobs, the pain is felt across the board. Borrowers fall behind on loans and fewer workers pay into pension funds.


A turnaround will take time to be felt in the labour market even if recovery sets in next year as authorities project. The central bank projects unemployment will peak at 28 percent before it starts to decline in 2015.


Scrambling for ways to ease the pain for Greeks, Athens wants to tap about 170 million euros of EU regional development funds to launch job programmes and has asked the European Commission to approve the move.


(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos and Renee Maltezou; editing by Stephen Nisbet)

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Aug 8 (Reuters) -The FIMMDA-Thomson Reuters Mumbai Inter-bank Forward Offered rate MIFOR= for six months based on the implied yield using dollar-rupee premium is 9.34 percent on Thursday compared with 9.49 percent the previous day.

The FIMMDA-Thomson Reuters Mumbai rupee overnight offered rate(MITOR) based on the cash-spot dollar rupee premium was 10.05 percent on Thursday. One-month, two-month, three-month, six-month and one-year swaps and benchmark rates are given in the table below.