Berlusconi Says Italy ‘Most Solid’ EU Country After Germany. (Updates with details on deficit and debt in third-fourth paragraphs, bond auction in final paragraph.
For more on the European debt crisis, see EXT4.) Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Italy’s low level of household borrowing helps buffer the euro-region’s second-largest debt, making the nation “the most solid country in Europe after Germany,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said. Italy’s austerity measures will only produce the desired effect if they are accompanied with robust economic growth, Berlusconi also said today in remarks at an event in Rome broadcast by Sky TG24.
Italy will balance its budget in 2013, when public debt “will start to decline,” the premier said. Italy’s European partners have stepped up pressure on Berlusconi to come up with new measures to produce the growth needed to reduce debt of more than $2 trillion. Summit Pledges Italian bonds yields have surged as contagion from the debt crisis spread. --With assistance from Giovanni Salzano in Rome. Italy’s Borrowing Costs Rise to Euro-Era Record at Bond Auction. (For more on the euro crisis, click on EXT4 <GO>) Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Italy’s borrowing costs rose to a euro-era record at a sale of three-year bonds, driving yields higher on concern that efforts to contain the sovereign crisis won’t be enough to safeguard the region’s third-largest economy.
The Rome-based Treasury sold 3.08 billion euros ($4.36 billion) of 2014 bonds to yield 4.93 percent, the highest since November 2000, and up from 4.68 percent on Sept. 29. Italy’s bonds extended declines after the sale, while German bunds pared most of their earlier losses. “They’ve sold the bulk of what they wanted to sell, but these are very high levels of interest that they are having to pay,” said Marc Ostwald, a fixed-income strategist at Monument Securities Ltd. in London.
Below Target “All in all, today’s auction was not very satisfying,” said Annalisa Piazza, a fixed-income strategist at Newedge Group in London. L'Italie paie un rendement record pour son emprunt à 10 ans. La Chine prête à investir 100 milliards de dollars dans le fonds de secours de l'euro. La Chine pourrait être désireuse de contribuer entre 50 et 100 milliards de dollars au FESF (Fonds européen de stabilité financière) ou à un nouveau fonds administré par le FMI, selon une personne proche du gouvernement et de la banque centrale chinoise, a indiqué le FT, le quotidien financier britannique.
Le gouvernement chinois n'a pas officiellement confirmé qu'il se joindrait à l'effort, mais veut "explorer les moyens de renforcer la coopération bilatérale sur la base d'un bénéfice réciproque", a affirmé jeudi un porte-parole du ministère des Affaires étrangères. "Si les conditions requises sont réunies, alors un investissement de l'ordre de 100 milliards de dollars n'est pas inconcevable", a affirmé cette personne au Financial Times.
Une (grosse) goutte d'eau pour le pays, qui détient environ 3.200 milliards de dollars de devises étrangères, dont 500 milliards de dette européenne. Pas d'accord dans l'immédiat.