Business Briefs

EUROZONE DEBT DEAL

THE leaders of the 17-country eurozone say they have thrashed out a strategy on how to deal with the debt crisis that has crippled the currency union over the past year and already pushed two of its members into multi-billion euro bailouts.

"The fundamental path was hacked open," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told journalists. Together with her eurozone counterparts, Merkel agreed to boost the region's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, so it can lend the full 440 billion that it initially promised.

MOORE AMONG SPEAKERS

SECRETARY of state for Scotland Michael Moore will be among the speakers considering Scotland's commercial future at the Scottish Council for Development and Industry's annual forum in St Andrews on 24-25 March. He will be joined by Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, deputy chairman of TNK-BP, James Smith, chairman of Shell UK, and Will Hutton, executive vice-chair of the Work Foundation.

FLIGHT TAX UNCHANGED

GOVERNMENT ministers have scrapped plans to reform aviation duty. The coalition partners had pledged before the general election to switch from "per passenger duty" to "per plane duty" to help cut down carbon emissions and cut prices. The current system means empty planes are not taxed. Private jets, cargo flights and transfer passengers also slip through the net.

There were estimates that the government would receive an extra 400 million from a per plane tax, but ministers have been told that a change would breach an international convention on fuel taxes.