VENTURE CAPITAL POST

This year’s African economic summit was ended with calls to boost trade and investment on the continent. The conference aims to strengthen Africa’s place in the world economy through investment and to establish Egypt as a gateway for foreign investments.

A gamut of factors are affecting the South African economy as dwindling inflows of money, weaker currency, rising unemployment rate and severe drought conditions are at their worst in 25 years. South Africa's GDP growth rate is projected to slowdown further in 2016.

San Fransisco-based biotech accelerator IndieBio is determined to help biotech startups the way other accelerators have done for IT startups. The firm believes that biotech is a highly important sector to boost the quality of humanity and economy, and is convincing other investors to have the same vision.

Japan's exports were badly hit by the steep drop in steel prices and other commodities. The world's third largest economy's exports fell 12.9 percent on the year in January to Yen 5.35 trillion ($47.12 billion), while the imports also fell 18 percent.

Puerto Rico has run into deep economic crisis, with its fiscal agent, the Government Development Bank, running out of reserves to cover even essential services. The government is tilting towards holding on to its debt repayments to sustain the island as a going concern, but their plea to creditors and the Congress to bail them out of the crisis is met with resistance on both fronts.

Japan’s auto workers unions had agreed on slimmer pay raise of 3,000 yen, only half the amount they demanded last year. That would hinder Prime Minister Abe’s determination to put an end to the country’s economy stagnation by boosting domestic growth and reviving exports.

A research conducted by JP Morgan analysts revealed that global investment banks would suffer a fall in profits this year. The fall could differ between regions, but average earnings are estimated to be down by 20 percent and revenues by 21 percent. Challenging economic environment is believed to negatively affect the global investment markets.

The changes are part of the government's economic stimulus package, expected to boost the country's economic growth and create job openings. Indonesia's new regulations on investment would loosen current restrictions on foreign investments in various sectors, including e-commerce, retail and healthcare.

The report estimated India's economic growth to be at 7.3 percent in 2016, and the growth would increase even more in 2017. India is already one of the world's fastest-growing economy last year, benefiting from the sharp decline of oil, metals, and food price.

The major factors such as oil price fall, economy growth concerns and uncertainty in stock markets are keeping more pressure on mortgage rates in the US market. The average US rate on long-term mortgage dropped for three weeks in a row to 3.81 percent. The average rate on 15-year mortgages dropped to 3.10 percent from 3.19 percent.

The Bank of Canada is expected to cut interest rates on Wednesday and not many are favoring the move. Many are worried that the rate cut will damage the already weakened Canadian dollar, among other worries.

China's slowdown has caused negative effects in businesses and countries around the world that financially depend on a large chunk of business with the Asian country. China must transition into a consumer drive economy in order to grow in the future, but the steps necessary to do so are complicating their international partnerships.

Underlining the erupting problem of liquidity crunch in its financial system, the world's second largest economy's central bank the 'People's Bank of China' has released GBP14 billion emergency funds into the domestic banking system to support the cash supply mechanism.

Downward pressure on China's economy will persist in the second half of the year as growth in infrastructure spending and exports is unlikely to pick up, a senior central bank official was quoted as saying.

China's money supply grew at its slowest pace on record and investment growth sank to its lowest in nearly 15 years as April data showed the world's second-largest economy was still losing momentum despite a concentrated burst of policy easing.