translation of "with"

[Slan83]

Dear Sir or madam,

today I had to translate the following sentence for a job interview, but now I am no longer sure, whether I interpreted it the right way. The sentence goes as follows:

The business environment across the Eurozone will be challenging for some time with slow economic growth and an uncertain investment environment providing little incentive for organizations to help deal with the critical issue of rising unemployment particularly in the periphery.

I thought that "with" meant "because of" in this case, but now I believe that it may refer to additional aspects of the "business environment". Could both versions be correct?

Thank you very much, I hope I have made myself clear.

[Raymott]

I thought that "with" meant "because of" in this case, but now I believe that it may refer to additional aspects of the "business environment". Could both versions be correct?

Yes, it could mean both. In fact, the author could have used "with" with this intent: s/he didn't want to explicitly say "because of", but wanted to give the impression at least of a strong association between the "challenge" and these factors.