VENTURE CAPITAL POST

With an objective of boosting economic growth, Serbia has slashed interest rate for a consecutive second month. The inflation rate is below the government's target and GDP growth rate was also eased in 2014. The decision of Serbia, the biggest former Yugoslav republic, to slash interest rate for a consecutive second month surprised everyone as it unexpected one both the times.

The growth rate of China's economy for 2014 has revised marginally lower to 7.3 percent from previous forecast of 7.4 percent. The drop in services sector weighed more on gross domestic product (GDP). According to the latest data from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the GDP stood at 63.6 trillion Yuan ($10 trillion) in 2013 and this was 32.4 percent lower than earlier projection. The latest data casts shadow over the Chinese government's target of seven percent for 2015.

China's new home prices fell for the eighth consecutive month in April from a year earlier but were flat from March, adding to hopes that a property downturn which is weighing heavily on the economy is beginning to bottom out.

Hours after China's central bank cut interest rates to battle slowing growth and rising deflationary risk, an official survey showed on Sunday that activity in China's factory sector contracted for a second straight month in February.

Average new home prices in China's 70 major cities fell for the ninth straight month but showed some signs of stabilizing in the top cities, signaling an improvement in market sentiment after the central bank cut interest rates and lender's reserve requirements.

Chinese industrial profits dropped 4.2 percent in November to 676.12 billion yuan ($108.85 billion), official data showed on Saturday, the biggest annual decline since August 2012 as the economy hit major unexpected headwinds in the second half.

When a guesthouse belonging to one of Nigeria's leading Christian pastors collapsed last month, killing 115 mostly South African pilgrims, attention focused on the multimillion-dollar "megachurches" that form a huge, untaxed sector of Africa's top economy.