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Business Daily

Factual: Money

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Business Daily: On the Watch List

01/03/2010

On the Watch List

BBC World Service - Business Daily, On the Watch List

The world's biggest bond investor says UK government bonds are 'on a watch list'.

The world's biggest bond investor says UK government debt is 'on a watch list'. Mohammed El-Erian is chief executive of PIMCO, which manages investments worth more than a trillion dollars.

The biggest bond investor in the world has warned about the quality of British government bonds, saying the UK is 'on a watch-list'.  Mohammed El-Erian is the chief executive of PIMCO, the Pacific Investment Management Company, which manages investments of all kinds worth more than a trillion dollars. 

Confidence in government bonds is at the heart of the debt crisis which has engulfed Greece and other European countries. Governments with big holes in their public finances increasingly need to raise money by selling bonds. They are IOUs which promise to make set payments in future, and can be traded on the markets. But in the case of Greece, confidence has been shaken in the government's ability to make the payments on its debt. 

Lesley Curwen spoke to Mohammed El-Erian about the plight of Greece and the doubts over Britain's sovereign debt.

Plus Allen Blackman, a Senior Fellow at the US think-tank Resources for the Future, explains why air pollution needs to be tackled immediately by heavy industry. 

And Lucy Kellaway doles out the awards for Worst Business Jargon of the Year. It's paradigm-shifting stuff.

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