Germany, France agree to boost investment

Germany, France agree to boost investment
# 21 October 2014 01:32 (UTC +04:00)
Baku-APA. Ministers from Germany and France agreed on Monday to draw up joint plans by early December to boost investment in order to revive the sagging euro zone economy, APA reports quoting Xinhua.
After meeting their German counterparts in Berlin, French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and Finance Minister Michel Sapin told reporters that both sides had agreed to work together to strengthen investments and competitiveness.
The ministers, however, didn't disclose details of their agreements. According to Sapin, concrete measures would be unveiled on December 1.
Both Germany and France were under pressure as Germany was urged to spend more from its abundant public funds while France was criticized for not cutting deficit enough.
Last week, French government submitted its 2015 budget with a deficit of 4.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to Brussels.
Earlier this month, France admitted that it would not be able to reduce its budget deficit to under theEuropean Union's limit of 3 percent of GDP until 2017, two years later than it previously committed.
Sapin said on Monday that France would try to cut deficits, while insisting that the European Union's budget rule should be applied in the context of "very weak inflation and very weak growth".
Ahead of visiting Berlin, French Economy Minister Macron was quoted by Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper as saying that Germany should increase investment by 50 billion euros by 2017 to offset the amount that his country would cut in spending.
"50 billion euros savings for us and 50 billion euros of additional investment by you -- that would be a good balance," he said.
Germany was urged by the International Monetary Fund and other parties abroad to take sufficient use of its fiscal scope in order to stimulate the economy of its own and the whole euro area.
With a target of adding no new borrowing next year for the first time since 1969, however, German government was reluctant to loosen its stance.
"Each country has its own tasks to solve," said German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Monday, adding that Germany would promote private investment in order to boost growth.
His colleague Wolfgang Schaeuble, the finance minister, admitted in the press conference that the euro zone economy was weakening, but insisting that investment should be strengthened "within the framework of our finance policy".
#
#

THE OPERATION IS BEING PERFORMED