India’s largest house finance banking company HDFC has announced raised lending rates by 75 basis points for new loan seekers, and on the other hand, the interest rate is up 50 bps for the existing customers.

The 50 bps hike will translate into a Rs 32 hike each month on a loan of Rs 1 lakh borrowed for 20 years. Yet HDFC’s after hike rates are cheaper than its nearest rival ICICI Bank which annunciated a rate hike last Week. Last week, ICICI Bank increased its benchmark advance rate to 15.75%, while Yes Bank hiked its PLR to 14.75%. However, the state-owned banks are yet to consider their lending rates.

The State bank of India announced on Wednesday that there’s going to be a small rise in rates for car loans and personal loans.

The MD of SBI said: “we have announced like in benchmark prime lending rates by 75basis points…Consequently, we will be raising rates by 75 basis points on an average.” Mr. Aggarwal added, “This interest rate cycle has peaked in economy and the rates are likely to stabilize at this level.”

SBI is going to raise interest rates in some schemes. SBI had also announced 0.75 % in its benchmark prime lending rate to 12.25% last month.

State Bank of India (SBI) will not increase interest rates for a range of existing home and education loan customers’.

Even as the shift may be partially influenced by the earlier finance ministry recommendation that banks should not rush through rate increases.

The banks’ asset liability committee (Alco) that gathered on late Thursday evening, has suggested to the bank panel that the standard prime-lending rate (PLR) may be hiked up by 50-75 basis points. At this time, the bank’s PLR is 12.25%.

Anil Manghnani of Modern Shares & Stock Brokers is of the view that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has trading target of Rs 1200.

Ambareesh Baliga of Karvy Stock Broking is of the view that investors will hold Reliance Energy, Tata Power stock tightly as there are full chances that the both stocks can insert another 5-8% from their subsisting level.

Baliga said, “Power stocks had under performed if you see the last 6-12 months they had under performed. So basically you have seen this stocks moving in the last month-month and a half other than NTPC, which started its move from Rs 110-120 onwards. But there is some more steam left in most of these stocks and I would still suggest that Reliance Energy and Tata Power could still move up another 5-8% move from here.”

It was a jerky session on Dalal Street. After a hopeful beginning, the indices came below a session of profit booking and trimmed off the majority of the day’s gains. The Nifty ended flat at 4,620 points after gaining just 1.40 points, whereas the Sensex ended the day at 15,795, up 63 points.

The stock markets closed on a flat note after a quite impulsive session. The boarder markets ended in the red with a weak breadth. In the F&O section, the return was the highest ever at Rs 64,281 crore.

IT, capital goods and IT stocks - Reliance Energy, Satyam, BHEL, NTPC, and HDFC Bank ended the day in the green, ended higher. But, selling pressure was seen in auto, FMCG, and pharma stocks.

Rajesh Agarwal of CD Equisearch has suggested the shareowners to stay invested in ICICI Bank for long term.

Agarwal told, “In ICICI Bank funds, but because of interest rates stabilizing the margins will be better this time. It is currently quoting at a PE of 28, I think the bank has a very good long-term prospect and one could hold for a long term. The price target would be in the range of Rs 1,100-1,150 in a period of 6-9 months.”

Rahul Mohindar of Viratechindia said that there is a possible downside in SBI’s stock value.

He said that the stock will experience other downside of Rs 100-150 with a short-term to medium-term viewpoint.

Mr. Mohindar stated, “In SBI, there is a visible short opportunity clearly because the stock looks much overstretched, it has reacted from more than Rs 1700 levels on its way down. So, I think technically we would have achieved almost all targets on both shorter-term and longer-term counts.”

He doesn’t believe that the SBI stock can do much on the positive aspect.

Ambareesh Baliga of Karvy Stock Broking believes that Infosys Technologies can definitely touch Rs 2200-2400 in the coming 6-9 months.

He suggested investors to hold the stock for long term, and when it reaches or crosses this expected level, they can make their profits from this evergreen stock.

Many financial institutions have submitted the expression of interest for stake in IFCI. IFCI plans to disinvest 26% share to a strategic investor. 10 companies who have submitted EoI includes IDFC, GE Capital, Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Standard Chartered Bank and Sterlite Industries are among other parties who are interested to acquire stake in IFCI. In year 2003, when IFCI was facing financial crisis, Government wanted to take over IFCI via PNB. IFCI was having huge loans which were causing losses for the company for 5 consecutive years. However, in recent quarterly results, IFCI posted net profit of Rs 246 crore.

The Commerce and Industry Minister, Kamal Nath has announced that the government is ready to offer a sector-specific package for tax and levy reimbursement to exporters hit by admiration in the rupee value.

Preserving his assurance that India will attain export objective of $160 billion in the existing fiscal (2007-08) even with currency related worries, Nath told that his department is making a Cabinet note for increasing refunds coverage to exporters.

India’s premier business association, CII at 68th Business Outlook Survey said that the Business Confidence picked up for October – March 2007-08 after a decline during the period April-September 2007-08.

CII’s business confidence index for October-March this fiscal, at 66.3, has witnessed a marginal increase of 2.4 points from April-September 2007. However, the index was down by 5.5 points when compared to the corresponding period last year.

Rating agency, Crisil Ltd has lowered its estimation for India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the current fiscal to 8.1 percent from 8.5 percent.

Crisil attributed increasing inflation and interest rates, together with a declining global growth viewpoint for the downward revision of GDP.

In a declaration, the agency said that it anticipates overall growth to remain strong regardless of the moderation, which is driven by investment.

As the existing inflationary prospects are way beyond the RBI’s comfort zone of 4-5-5%, a cut in key interest rates has been rejected, the report said.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Bank of Japan (BOJ) has signed a bilateral swap arrangement (BSA) on Monday. The BSA was signed by BOJ governor Masaaki Shirakawa and RBI governor Yaga Venugopal Reddy in Basel, Switzerland. It will pave a way for swapping local currencies against the US dollar for up to $3 billion. The agreement will also sort out problem of short-term liquidity and strengthen existing international financial arrangements

The agreement was come into effect on Sunday (June 29). Both Japan and India can now swap Yen and rupee against the US dollar up to $3 billion. They will hold biannual consultations on economic and financial conditions of each country with the BSA in effect.

The economic growth rate of India may moderate to 8% during the current (2008-09) fiscal year.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that the 13-year high inflation rate of 11.42 percent may result into a little lower growth rate but if necessary steps to control inflation are taken, the growth objective of 9% will not be difficult to achieve.

On the other hand the central bank expects the economy to clock a 8-8.5 percent growth in 2008/09.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Thursday that the flow of credit from scheduled commercial banks has increased between April and June 20 this year. The credit flow has increased by 25.4% during this period. The growth is slower than the corresponding period of last year.

The rise in credit is due to high demand from public sector oil firms. The oil firms are under-recovery due to subsidy on oil products. They are forced to sell petroleum products at the rate below the prevailing global rates.

Despite the fear of economic slowdown as a result of continuous rise in the crude oil prices, the net direct tax collections increased by 38.61 per cent in the first quarter.

According to a statement released by the Finance Ministry, the growth in direct tax collections in Nagpur and Kochi witnessed as high as 74.08 % and 68.98% respectively, in the direct tax collection, whereas, it was less than 50% in cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata. In the capital city Delhi, the direct tax collection increased to 53.57%.

Reliance Capital Ltd., a financial services major controlled by Indian billionaire Anil Ambani, has finally increased its lending rates on property loans by 0.50 per cent to 14.25 per cent. The company announced a 50 basis point increase in the lending rates for all its floating rate linked products - Mortgage and SME Loans. However, loans taken on fixed interest rates would not be affected by the PLR hike. According to the company, only the loans taken on floating rate will be costlier. The new rate has been applicable from August 1, 2008.

The increase in TDS receipts and buoyancy in corporate profits led to an increase in the direct tax collection, including corporate and personal income tax, by 46.95% to Rs 71,648 crore in April-July this year.

A finance ministry statement said, “Robust growth in direct tax collections is a result of tax education and compliance mechanism put in place by the Income Tax department in the area of tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collection at source (TCS) and indicates further improvement in tax administration and tax compliance levels.”

The rate of inflation has increased to 12.01 percent. It is the highest rate in past 13 years. The inflation rate was 11.98 per cent in the last week. The wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation rate is increased due to increase in the prices of as pulses, spices, eggs, fish and meat and some dairy products.

Although the rate of steel is not increased by steel companies yet the increase in the prices of cement contributed in the rise of inflation rate.

The Prime Lending Rate (PLR) has been revised by State Bank of India (SBI), almost after two weeks the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the repo rate and the CRR. From today onwards, the revised benchmark lending rates from 12.75% p.a. to 13.75% p.a. would come in effect.

The deposit rates have also been raised by SBI from 25 bps to 75 bps depending on the tenure of deposit.

The existing and new home loan borrowers with limits up to Rs 3 million would be spared from the rate increase by SBI. Home loan borrowers are being charged in the range 10.5-11.25% by the bank, depending on the tenure and the size of the loan.

Tokyo - Japan's foreign reserves hit a record high in December as US Treasury bond prices increased, the Finance Ministry said Friday.

The nation's foreign exchange reserves amounted to 1.03 trillion dollars at the end of December, marking a the second monthly rise in a row.

Foreign securities came to 908.02 billion dollars and foreign currency deposits totaled 95.29 billion dollars.

Paris  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy demanded late Thursday that the European Union adopt a common position to reform the capitalist system.

During a 90-minute appearance on national television to discuss the economic crisis, Sarkozy also criticized the European Union for passivity in the face of the crisis.

"It is not possible that, in such a situation, Europe does not take the initiative," Sarkozy said, indirectly criticizing the Czech presidency and the European Commission.

Paris  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy demanded late Thursday that the European Union adopt a common position to reform the capitalist system.

During a 90-minute appearance on national television to discuss the economic crisis, Sarkozy also criticized the European Union for passivity in the face of the crisis.

"It is not possible that, in such a situation, Europe does not take the initiative," Sarkozy said, indirectly criticizing the Czech presidency and the European Commission.

Reykjavik  - The interim prime minister of Iceland Friday presented amendments to the composition of the central bank.

Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir presented the bill that included that the current system of three governors would be replaced with a single governor.

The position would be advertised and the governor would be required to have "completed a master's degree in economics and have extensive experience and expertise in monetary issues," the bill said.

Washington - US President Barack Obama on Friday created a new bipartisan advisory board to develop solutions to the country's economic crisis as he warned lawmakers that immediate action was critical to pulling the US out of a serious recession.

The 17-member board, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, includes conservative and left-leaning economists from academia, labour unions and business.

"This is just the beginning of a long journey back to progress and prosperity," Obama said in prepared remarks released by the White House.

Berlin - German Economics Minister Michael Glos has offered to resign, the newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported on Saturday.

The newspaper said the minister had informed Chancellor Angela Merkel of his intention.

Glos is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).

The 64-year-old Glos expressed his desire to step down in a letter to CSU leader Host Seehofer, who is also president of the southern German state of Bavaria.

Berlin  - German Economics Minister Michael Glos offered to resign Saturday, less that eight months before the country votes in a general election, sources close to the minister said.

The sources confirmed a report in the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, which said the 64-year-old minister had informed Chancellor Angela Merkel of his intention.

Glos is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).

Berlin  - In a surprise move, German Economics Minister Michael Glos offered to resign Saturday, less that eight months before the country votes in a general election, sources close to the minister said.

The sources confirmed a report in the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, which said the 64-year-old minister had informed Chancellor Angela Merkel of his intention.

Washington  - The United States' economic recovery package overcame a decisive hurdle Monday in the Senate, which voted to close debate on an
827-billion-dollar compromise bill that would be the largest in US history.

The Senate voted 61-36 to invoke cloture on the stimulus legislation, setting the stage for a final vote in the chamber on Tuesday. (dpa)

Washington - Wall Street's top executives on Wednesday defended the hundreds of billions of dollars their struggling firms have received in government bail-out funds, insisting the money has helped improve lending to consumers.

Many also recognized the sharp degree of public outrage at the slow recovery process and accepted some responsibility for the near- collapse of the US and global financial system.

Brussels  - Shareholders in Dutch-Belgian bank Fortis on Wednesday rejected its emergency nationalization, throwing into chaos state plans to split up the crisis-hit lender.

In two votes, 57 per cent of shareholders rejected the sale of the Dutch parts of the bank to the Dutch state, while just over half of shareholders rejected the sale of the bank's Belgian arm to the Belgian state, and thence to French banking giant BNP Paribas, local media reported.

Cairo  - Egypt's central bank on Friday announced it would cut interest rates for the first time since 2006, in response to slowed economic growth and inflation.

The Central Bank of Egypt lowered the overnight deposit and lending rates by 100 basis points to 10.5 and 12.5 per cent, respectively, its first cut since April 2006.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama's economic recovery package was expected to clear its final hurdles Friday as both houses of Congress prepared to vote on a 789-billion-dollar compromise bill.

Obama, addressing business leaders at the White House, called the stimulus package a "once-in-a-generation chance to act boldly and turn adversity into opportunity."

Washington  - The US House of Representatives approved a nearly 790-billion-dollar economic recovery package Friday by 246-183 votes.

The Senate is expected to follow suit Friday evening. (dpa)

Washington  - US President Barack Obama's economic recovery package was set to clear its final hurdles Friday as both houses of Congress voted on a nearly
790-billion-dollar compromise bill.

The House of Representatives approved the stimulus package - the largest single spending proposal in US history - by a vote of 246-183 Friday afternoon, with no support from the chamber's minority Republicans. The Senate was expected to follow suit Friday evening.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama's economic recovery package was set to clear its final hurdles Friday as both houses of Congress voted on a nearly
790-billion-dollar compromise bill to help pull the United States out of recession.

The House of Representatives approved the stimulus package - the largest single spending proposal in US history - by a vote of 246-183 Friday afternoon. The Senate was expected to follow suit Friday evening.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama on Saturday thanked Congress for passing a 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus bill, which he called "a major milestone on our road to recovery."

In his weekly address he also warned that "this historic step won't be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but the beginning."

Warsaw - Poland's National Bank warned on Monday against moving closer to adopting the euro, saying that at present there were few economic reasons to enter the precursory stage for adopting the euro.

It was "highly uncertain" that Poland could meet the criteria to stay in ERM-2, a pre-cursor program to joining the eurozone, said the report, released on Monday.

A qualifying country is required to spend at least two years in ERM-2 and run a budget deficit at no more than 3 per cent of the GDP.

Prague - The Czech Republic's centre-right government Monday approved a set of fiscal measures aimed at softening the economic slump's effects on the country's export-driven economy.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek told a news conference that the package and earlier pro-export measures adopted in late 2008 would cost taxpayers 1.9 per cent of gross domestic product, or some 70 billion koruny (3 billion dollars).

The premier said that the plan counts on a prediction that the country's economy would contract by 1 per cent.

Budapest  - Hungary's socialist government presented a new tax package to parliament on Monday which it hopes will make the country one of the most competitive in the region.

Corporate tax will be raised from 16 to 19 per cent, but because a "solidarity" tax on company profit will be scrapped, the de facto rate will fall from 20 to 9 per cent.

Washington  - The centrepiece of Barack Obama's economic rescue plans will become law Tuesday, the culmination of a six-week process full of partisan wrangling that handed the US president his first significant victory since inauguration.

Obama is to sign a 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus bill at a ceremony in Denver, Colorado. The largest single spending measure in US history is intended to help the country recover from a year-long recession that many consider the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Warsaw  - Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday the government would intervene if the country's currency drops to 5 zloty against the euro, and would then sell euros on the market.

The announcement came after the zloty dropped to historic lows on Monday, when it traded at 4.77 against the euro. It dipped further on Tuesday, when at times it traded at
4.94 against the euro.

Reykjavik  - Iceland was set to keep its increased whaling quota for the coming year, Fisheries Minister Steingrimur J Sigfusson said Wednesday.

The raised annual quota of 150 fin whales and 100 minke whales was announced at the end of January shortly before former Fisheries Minister Einar K Gudfinnsson left office.

Sigfusson added that it was not certain that Iceland would keep the quota for the coming five years as his predecessor had suggested.

Warsaw  - Poland's finance ministry sold euros on the market Wednesday from its European Union funds amid a sinking zloty, a ministry spokesman told TVN24.

The spokesman declined to say how much was sold, or if the government would sell more in an effort to boost the weakening national Polish currency.

The zloty had dipped to 4.94 against the euro on Tuesday. It had risen to 4.77 against the euro at the close of the stock exchange on Wednesday.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama said Wednesday he hopes to keep between 7 and 9 million homeowners out of foreclosure, using 75 billion dollars to stabilize a housing crisis that is at the heart of the country's deepening recession.

Obama unveiled plans offering aid to homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages, to relax rules on mortgage refinancing and to help neighbourhoods raise property values by renovating already foreclosed properties.

Prague - Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said Wednesday that his government's stimulus plan is to give the Czech economy a boost amounting to 4.7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), or nearly 180 billion koruny (7.8 billion dollars).

The stimulus is to cost taxpayers some 73.5 billion koruny, or 1.9 per cent of GDP, and expand country's budget gap accordingly, Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek said.

The budget deficit is expected this year to exceed 3 per cent, a limit the European Union requires for adopting the euro.

Frankfurt  - Volkswagen's banking unit said it was cleared Wednesday to receive 2 billion euros (2.6 billion dollars) in guarantees from Germany's bank bailout fund, Soffin.

The finance unit, which lends to people who buy Volkswagen Group cars, but also operates as an online bank, is the first car company bank to receive backing from the fund. No immediate comment could be obtained from Soffin in Frankfurt.

Warsaw  - Poland has begun talks with the European Central Bank (ECB) on entering the first stage of adopting the euro currency, the head of the ruling Civic Platform party said on Wednesday.

"Official talks with the ECB on entering ERM-2 (Exchange Rate Mechanism) have been ongoing since several days ago," Zbigniew Chlebowski told the Polish Press Agency PAP.

The ECB and Poland's Ministry of Finance did not comment.

Washington - The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday forecast strong growth for the US economy in 2010 and 2011, and central bank head Ben Bernanke said the country's recovery from a deep recession could begin this year with the right combination of government policies.

Fed members dramatically lowered their growth forecasts from October, which came at the early stages of a massive financial crisis that has derailed the world's largest economy. But the figures were nonetheless relatively positive about the prospects in coming years.

Washington  - A key gauge of US economic performance rose higher than expected in January despite the country's ongoing recession, according to a private research group Thursday.

The New York-based Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators was up 0.4 per cent, after climbing a revised 0.2 per cent in December of last year.

The index, which is designed to measure the economy's performance over the coming three to six months, has fallen 1.9 per cent since July.

Los Angeles  - The family of the woman who gave birth to octuplets may soon find itself on the street after failing to pay the mortgage on its home for almost a year, according to a default notice filed with local authorities.

The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that Angela Suleman, the grandmother of Nadya Suleman's 14 young children, was 23,324 dollars in arrears on the Los Angeles area home that the family lives in.

The default notice was filed on February 9. Suleman bought the house in March 2006 for 605,000 dollars with a loan of 453,750 dollars.

Washington - Renewable energy in the United States could get a significant cash boost by early summer after President Barack Obama signed a massive
787-billion-dollar economic stimulus package this week, the administration said Thursday.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said his department was doing its best to speed up the evaluation of new projects and expected about 70 per cent of the total energy funds to be used by the end of 2010.

Berlin  - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Wednesday spoke of concerns that Europe's markets could face further destabilzation.

He made his comments during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"We are worried about a further destabilization of the financial markets and economies," Barroso said. He added that further measures were being considered, such as regulations for hedge funds, investment funds and management compensation packages.

According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. the slump in the economy will drive new home construction to a nine-year low in 2009. This prediction comes in stark contrast to what the Crown Corporation was saying in November.

In defense, Bill Clark, senior economist with CMHC, said that it was not possible last quarter to predict the economic decline we are now witnessing its impact on the economy.

Three months back CMHC conjectured that there would be 177,975 new homes built this year. On Thursday the figure was attuned to 160,250 a_" a level not seen since

Washington  - US President Barack Obama met with dozens of the country's mayors at the White House Friday, promising closer cooperation but urging local authorities to spend a massive government stimulus package wisely.

US cities and states have faced massive budget shortfalls in the year-long recession, forcing many to contemplate cutbacks in services just as demand for government benefits is rising.

Mexico City - Mexico's central bank cut the leading interest rate by 25 basic points Friday to leave it at 7.5 per cent.

This was the second interest rate cut in Mexico in little over a month.

The Bank of Mexico said the global financial crisis continued to get tougher, and said that, although inflation has shown a downward trend since January, "the strong financial turbulence that was observed recently represents a risk."

Tallinn  - The Estonian government survived a no confidence vote on Friday, which it had tied to plans for scathing budget cuts in a high-stakes bid to deal with the country's troubled economy.

The coalition government of Andrus Ansip won the vote in the national parliament, or Riigikogu, by 61 votes to 35.

It had tied the no confidence vote to plan for a special budget aimed at saving around 8 billion kroons (690 million dollars) from public finances.

Baghdad  - Mostafa Hussein, a young man from Baghdad, once dreamed of joining Iraq's security forces to help end the fighting that has torn his country apart in recent years.

And so Hussein joined the Sunni tribal police as a first step. He tried not to let the death threats he received as a result bother him. Undeterred, he applied for a job with the Iraqi police.

When the police turned him down, Hussein did not give up. He tried bribing his way into a job, also without success. All the government jobs, he said, are reserved for friends and relatives of government officials.

Washington  - President Barack Obama met with dozens of the country's mayors at the White House Friday, promising close cooperation but urging them to spend government funds wisely in order to halt the country's economic slide.

US cities and states have faced huge budget shortfalls in the country's year-long recession, forcing many to contemplate cutbacks in services just as demand for government benefits is rising.

Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Saturday for unified international rules for the financial markets, on the eve of a meeting with the heads of Europe's leading economies.

There could no longer be "blank spots" where regulations don't apply in the wake of the financial meltdown, Merkel said in her weekly video podcast.

Dublin - Up to 120,000 people protested in the Irish capital Dublin on Saturday against the government's handling of the economy and the activities of the banks during the financial crisis.

The demonstration, one of the largest ever in the city, was called for by a number of Ireland's unions. State employees vented their anger over government cutback plans and the effect that the recession, which began late in 2008, is having on workers.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama is urging states to spend the government's money wisely despite a deepening recession, ahead of his annual address to Congress Tuesday that will outline the long-term budget priorities for his administration.

Addressing a meeting of the country's governors Monday in Washington, Obama said he was relying on states to quickly implement the 787-billion-dollar stimulus package that became law last week and is aimed at halting the country's disastrous economic slide.

Brussels  - The European Union flirted with chaos Monday as top diplomats complained about a "cliquey" response to the recession and failed to agree on the use of community funds to aid economic recovery.

"I must admit I'm extremely worried about the EU's institutional chaos. Never in the EU's history has there been a period like this with so many cliques," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said after regular talks in Brussels with his EU counterparts.

Cairo - Refaat al-Sheikh, like many of the shop owners in Cairo's Medieval Khan al-Khalili bazaar, on Monday sat idly on a wooden chair in front of his shop with a sad look on his face.

"The situation is as you can see," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, gesturing at normally bustling market streets now populated mostly by police and journalists.

"First the financial crisis, and now this bomb?"

Brussels - The European Union flirted with chaos Monday as top diplomats complained about a "cliquey" response to the recession and failed to agree on the use of community funds to aid economic recovery.

"I must admit I'm extremely worried about the EU's institutional chaos. Never in the EU's history has there been a period like this with so many cliques," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said after regular talks in Brussels with his EU counterparts.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama on Monday promised to cut the federal budget deficit more than half by the end of his four- year term in office, despite a deepening recession that has forced the government to spend record amounts of money.

Obama, who took office in January, inherited a 2008 budget deficit of 1.3 trillion dollars. That figure is expected to top 2 trillion dollars - more than 10 per cent of US gross domestic product - in 2009 as the country confronts a massive economic crisis.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama on Monday promised to halve the country's ballooning federal budget deficit by the end of his four-year term in office, despite a deepening recession that has forced his administration to spend record amounts of money.

Obama, who took office in January, inherited a 2008 budget deficit of 1.3 trillion dollars. That figure could top 2 trillion dollars - more than 10 per cent of US gross domestic product - in 2009 in an effort to halt the country's disastrous economic slide.

Washington  - US consumer confidence slid to a new low in February as the world's largest economy continues to battle recession, a private research group said Tuesday.

The New York-based Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence fell to 25.0 in February from 37.4 in January.

The survey of 5,000 households found that the majority of respondents (51.1 per cent) believe business conditions are bad, up from 47.9 per cent last month. About 48 per cent of respondents said jobs were hard to get, up from 41 per cent in January.

Taipei  - Taiwan posted yet another record slump of 41.67 per cent in export orders in January, as deteriorating global economic conditions further eroded overseas demands, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said Tuesday.

In January, the island received orders worth just 17.68 billion US dollars, down 41.67 per cent year-on-year, following a 33-per-cent decline in December, the ministry said in a statement.

Among Taiwan's export markets, orders from China and Hong Kong - Taiwan's top export destinations - fell a record 54.71 per cent year-on-year to 3.66 billion US dollars.

Brussels  - The European Union should ease its rules to allow new members to swap their national currency for the euro more rapidly, Hungary's prime minister said Tuesday.

"The best protection against foreign-exchange problems is to join the eurozone ... We should see how the steps towards the euro could be made quicker," Ferenc Gyurcsany told journalists in Brussels.

In particular, countries which have met the EU's strict rules on inflation and budget discipline should be allowed to join the single currency without having to spend two years in the preparatory Exchange Rate Mechanism 2 (ERM 2), he said.

Washington  - If massive government action to revive the US economy is successful the recession affecting the world's largest economy could begin to turn around this year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday.

Testifying before the US Senate Banking Committee, the central bank chairman said the government stimulus is essential to break the cycle of adverse feedback that helps to keep the economy down.

Washington  - If massive government action to revive the US economy is successful the recession affecting the world's largest economy could begin to turn around this year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday.

Testifying before the US Senate Banking Committee, the central bank chairman said the government stimulus is essential to break the cycle of adverse feedback that helps to keep the economy down, even as he warned of ongoing negative pressures.

Washington - President Barack Obama will offer assurances that the United States can recover and emerge stronger from its worst economic crisis in decades, according to released excerpts of his speech to be delivered Tuesday evening to Congress.

"While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: we will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Obama will say, according to the excerpts released by the White House.

The government on Tuesday announced a Rs 30,000-crore booster shot for the economy by cutting excise duty and service tax by 2% each and extending an earlier 4% reduction in excise beyond March 31, 2009. This is the government's third economic stimulus package in three months.

The tax cut will have no impact on passenger cars and two-wheelers. Only truck makers may cut prices. The real estate sector could benefit, as steel and cement prices are reduced. But several services which currently attract service tax at 12% will pay 10%, reducing your costs by small fleabites.

India's credit standing internationally is now just a notch above junk. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P's) on Tuesday lowered the outlook on India's sovereign rating from 'stable' to 'negative', citing a deteriorating fiscal situation and a challenging economic environment, made worse by profligate spending by the government. 

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P's) on Tuesday lowered the outlook on India's sovereign rating from 'stable' to 'negative', citing a deteriorating fiscal situation. 

With "high government debt burden and deficits", India's "weak fiscal profile" has been the single "largest negative factor" for the sovereign ratings on India, it added. In the interim budget unveiled by Pranab Mukherjee on February 16, the government disclosed that the fiscal deficit - the gap between revenues and expenditure - had risen to 6% of GDP from the 2.5% projected in February, 2008. And this figure excludes the off-budget subsidies of Rs 95,942 crore for oil and fertiliser companies.

Brussels  - European Union efforts to revive "zombie banks" poisoned by toxic assets and to jointly supervise the bloc's troubled financial sector gained momentum Wednesday as experts in Brussels issued a series of recommendations to member states.

But those pushing for the swift creation of a pan-European supervisory body were set for disappointment, with officials saying such an option was currently "unrealistic".

Islamabad  - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to approve a second tranche of 800 million dollars of its 7.6-billon- dollar program to save Pakistan from defaulting on external payments, a senior official said on Wednesday.

"The Executive Board of the IMF will approve the second tranche for Pakistan by the end of March 2009," Pakistan's Finance Secretary Waqar Masood told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa from Dubai, where the sides concluded the talks.

Washington  - US central bank head Ben Bernanke on Wednesday rejected the idea that the government plans to nationalize major US banks in danger of collapse, during a second day of testimony before legislators.

The Federal Reserve chairman insisted that President Barack Obama's administration preferred to use public-private partnerships, which were temporary in nature and involved taking only a portion of banks' shares in exchange for emergency government funds.

Berlin  - Germany's postal delivery company Deutsche Post has been hit by losses of 1.69 billion euros (2.16 billion dollars) for 2008, the company reported Wednesday.

This is the first time the company has posted an overall loss since the privatisation of Germany's postal industry in 1995.

The high losses were largely a result of the company's loss-making US business arm, as well as deficits at the company's Postbank subsidiary.

Washington  - President Barack Obama met top congressional leaders and economic officials from his administration Wednesday to take the "critical first step" in overhauling a financial regulatory system that has shared blame for the devastating credit crisis.

Obama called for "serious oversight" of the country's biggest financial institutions in future but said there was no intention to stifle market activity.

He said legislation would be drawn up in the coming weeks and months to pull the US agencies out of a "20th century" regulatory structure and prevent another crisis of similar magnitude.

NRI entrepreneur's holding firm is on an expansion drive

While the economic downturn may have brought liquidity problems for most of corporate India, NRI entrepreneur C Sivasankaran does not seem to be short of cash.

Indeed, going by the latest action by Siva Ventures, his holding company, is on the verge of a major expansion into the relatively undervalued corporate economy. Sivasankaran is known for buying companies on the cheap and selling them off for much higher valuations after a few years.

It will further erode the cost advantage of post-quake units in the district

One man's meat is another man's poison, goes the saying. The Union government's third stimulus package, announced on Tuesday in the form of two per cent cut in excise duty and service tax, to boost the economy may turn out to be exactly that for the industries set up in Kutch district at an investment of Rs24,000 crore after the devastating earthquake of 2001.

The 2% excise duty cut announced on Tuesday would have very little impact on the auto industry. The excise duty cut is applicable only to products where the excise duty rate is 10%. Trucks are the only category paying this rate.

The auto industry is one of the hardest hit on account of slowdown. Lower demand and tight finances have impacted sales volumes of all auto companies sharply. The government cut excise duty rates so that the companies can pass on the benefit of rate cut to end consumers, thus boosting demand for the industry.

However, analysts maintain that apart from some impact on commercial vehicle (CV) makers, the move is unlikely to benefit auto companies. The reason?

Whoever wins the next polls, there are only hard choices left for the economy

The coming general election in April-May will be a good one to lose. Whoever wins will struggle to hold on to power; whoever loses will get an inside edge at the next elections, which may come as early as 2011.

Why? It's the economy, stupid. The UPA is leaving behind a right royal economic mess and the next government will be spending most of its time with a bucket and mop, trying to keep a listing boat from capsizing. That's assuming we have a halfway decent coalition, where the partners are at least on talking terms with one another. If that doesn't happen, it's finito.

Reykjavik - The two remaining governors of the central bank of Iceland were due to resign after weeks of criticism of their handling of the economic crisis, reports said Thursday.

Central bank governor David Oddsson and governor Eirikur Gudnason, were reported to have said goodbye to bank employees, public broadcaster RUV said.

The report came as parliament was due to adopt a bill changing the composition of the central bank, including replacing the three governors with a single governor.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama on Thursday outlined his 2010 budget and projections for the next 10 years, offering a look at how he hopes to pay for many of the ambitious priorities he set out on the campaign trail and over his first month in office.

The budget includes a cap-and-trade programme to reduce climate- damaging emissions. It would make permanent a set of tax cuts for middle-class workers enacted last week, while rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy that were enacted by former president George W Bush in 2001 and 2003.

Islamabad  - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on thursday offered cash-strapped Pakistan to double its annual assistance to three billion dollars during the incoming fiscal year staring on July 1, a senior official of the bank said.

"We can double Pakistan's assistance up to three billion per annum provided Islamabad makes a request and the funds available to ADB are increased," the bank's vice president Zhao Xiaoyu told reporters in Islamabad.

Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that she expects an honest assessment of the financial situation within Eastern Europe at a European Union (EU) summit meeting this weekend.

Merkel said that, as far as the EU member states are concerned, "we should be given an honest status of the situation," adding that this had not necessarily been the case at the EU's December summit.

Washington - US President Barack Obama on Thursday outlined a 2010 budget and projections for the next 10 years, offering a look at how he hopes to revive the embattled US economy while completing a series of ambitious priorities he set out on the campaign trail.

Washington  - The US economy shrank by 6.2 per cent in the final quarter of 2008, far worse than initially estimated and the worst fourth-quarter showing by the country since the recession of 1982, Washington reported Friday.

In its latest estimate of the gross domestic product (GDP) performance, the US Commerce Department annualized figure was much worse than the initial estimate of a 3.8 per cent drop in the last quarter.

Washington - The US economy shrank by 6.2 per cent in the final quarter of 2008, far worse than initially estimated and the worst fourth-quarter showing by the country since the recession of 1982, the US Commerce Department said Friday.

The annualized figure was revised from an earlier estimate of an only 3.8-per-cent drop and underscored the severity of the recession in the US economy. Most economists are expecting a similar contraction in the first three months of 2009.

Prague  - Since headlines began asking whether Eastern Europe is like an "Argentina on the Danube", those of the region's countries that are in better financial shape have contested that grim image.

A flurry of reports describing Eastern Europe as "the eye of the next financial storm" have included the Czech Republic and Poland despite their economies being seen as capable of weathering the downturn with less damage than some of their neighbours.

As the bad news spreads, traders in far-away financial hubs have been shedding the Czech koruna and Polish zloty alongside currencies in region's troubled spots such as Hungary and Latvia.

Implicitly, economic performance is slated to improve during the final quarter

The overall pace of economic growth decelerated to a lacklustre 5.5% during the fiscal third quarter from 8.9% a year ago and 7.6% the preceding quarter.

The decline follows a sharp plunge in the real gross domestic product (GDP) originating from the secondary sector and an absolute decline in thecontribution from the primary sector, which could not be offset by a robust showing of the tertiary segment.

Implicitly, economic performance is slated to improve during the final quarter

The overall pace of economic growth decelerated to a lacklustre 5.5% during the fiscal third quarter from 8.9% a year ago and 7.6% the preceding quarter.

The decline follows a sharp plunge in the real gross domestic product (GDP) originating from the secondary sector and an absolute decline in thecontribution from the primary sector, which could not be offset by a robust showing of the tertiary segment.

JDA earmarks funds for roads, sanitation, water supply lines and electrification

The Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) will spend Rs45 crore to improve basic infrastructure like roads, sanitation, electrification, water supply lines and plantation in several areas falling under its jurisdiction. In a meeting on Friday, the Project Works Committee (PWC) of the authority gave its nod to the proposal and issued directions to study the viability of a policy for sustained development of various areas.

Prague - The current Czech presidency of the European Union has called for a common approach to the financial and economic crisis from EU members, ahead of a special union summit in Brussels on Sunday.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said in a statement from Prague on Saturday that "We do not want any new dividing lines; we do not want a Europe divided along a North-South or an East-West line."

Several Eastern European economies appear to be faring even worse than recession-hit western European states, in the face of rapidly weakening exchange rates and large current account deficits.

Prague/Brussels  - The Czech Republic, current holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, called for the emergency EU summit on Sunday to reject protectionism as France vowed that a plan to support the auto industry would not break EU rules.

"We do not want any new dividing lines; we do not want a Europe divided along a North-South or an East-West line; pursuing a beggar-thy-neighbour policy is unacceptable. That the internal market remains united is of vital importance," Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said in a statement on Saturday.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon announced that private health insurance premiums will go up by an average of 6.02% on April 1. She said she had written to several large funds in this regards and had challenged their request for larger premium rises.

"Without that close scrutiny, premium rises would have been higher for up to eight million Australians," she said.

"This year's increase is the result of increased benefits paid to patients, rising health service costs, and investment losses from the global financial crisis."

Now the sea lovers can cruise their way to their favorite destinations as the recession makes the cruise industry to come up with all kinds of cruise deals to attract the consumer. This includes attractive offers like discounted airfare, free tickets for kids, onboard credits, lower deposits and deals on cancellation insurance.

The shadows of the economic slowdown are lengthening every day. On Monday, the rupee declined against the dollar, the markets crashed, and the export figures showed another decline.

Rupee down: Bad news on the economic front haunted the rupee as it closed at an all-time-low of Rs 51.95 against the US dollar. Bankers believe the Indian currency will be under constant pressure this week. "It could weaken to 52.50-52.70 levels as global uncertainties and weakness in the local stock market are impacting the rupee," said RVS Shridhar, head of markets at Axis Bank.

Washington  - The US government on Tuesday launched a new programme designed to unfreeze credit markets by taking a direct role in lending for small businesses, cars, student tuition, credit cards and other core sectors of the struggling US economy.

The US Treasury and Federal Reserve said they would begin lending up to 200 billion dollars by March 25 to help restart securitization markets, a critical component of the US economy that has virtually come to a halt since the financial crisis exploded in September.

Washington - US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday warned there was "considerable uncertainty" over how quickly the United States can recover from a deep recession, even as funds from a massive government stimulus package were being released into the economy.

While President Barack Obama announced that new infrastructure projects would begin Tuesday and help spur job growth, Bernanke told a Senate hearing that it was difficult to measure the impact of Obama's 787-billion-dollar plan.

Washington  - US government officials warned they may need even more money to stabilize the country's crumbling financial sector as they launched a new
1-trillion-dollar programme Tuesday designed to unfreeze credit markets.

The US Treasury and Federal Reserve said they would begin directly lending up to 200 billion dollars by March 25 to help restart securitization markets, a critical component of the struggling US economy that provides loans for small businesses, cars, student tuition, credit cards and other core sectors.

Washington - President Barack Obama promised to cut waste across all government agencies, announcing a review Wednesday of the administration's methods for awarding contracts.

With an economic crisis that has forced the government to run up a massive budget deficit, Obama said he could cut billions of dollars of spending in the Defence Department and other agencies by reducing cost overruns, ending needless projects and limiting the use of private contractors.

Budapest - The Hungarian forint fell to a record low of 312 against the euro on Wednesday morning, heightening concern over Hungary's ability to meet its external debt obligations and putting further pressure on Hungarians with foreign currency loans.

Finance Minister Janos Veres sought to dismiss fears that Hungary was on the brink of a sovereign default, saying that its central bank has over 20 billion euros (25 billion dollars) in its foreign currency reserves.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet agreed Wednesday on the structure of a 100-billion-euro (125 billion dollars) government fund to aid struggling firms.

Companies hard hit by the global economic downturn will be able to apply for state assistance from the first half of March under the terms of the deal that runs until the end of
2009.

Washington  - The United States launched an effort Wednesday to help homeowners pay off their mortgages, hoping to stabilize a housing crisis that lies at the centre of the country's deep recession.

President Barack Obama last month announced a 75-billion-dollar plan to help up to 9 million homeowners refinance their mortgages and avoid foreclosure.

Washington  - The US economy shrank in nearly all parts of the country in the first two months of the year, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday in the latest sign of a deepening US recession.

Ten of 12 US regions reported "weaker conditions or declines in economic activity" since the start of 2009, according to the central bank's Beige Book, which is compiled from local business reports around the country.

Manila - The Philippines' inflation rate inched up to 7.3 per cent in February due to higher food and fuel prices, the government said Thursday.

The February index was up from 7.1 per cent in January and 5.4 per cent in the same month in 2008, according to the National Statistics Office (NSO).

The NSO said the higher inflation was "mainly due to the upward price adjustments in the heavily weighted food items, particularly rice, meat, corn and eggs."

State-owned banks trim interest rates on fresh bout of liquidity, but private banks unrelenting to follow suit

Raghu Nair recently pre-paid his home loan with a leading private bank and switched over to a public sector bank (PSB) which charged him a much lower interest rate. The 32 year-old businessman is making a neat saving of approximately Rs 3,000 on his EMI’s every month with the switchover.

Ideological orthodoxy on the part of the world's leading central bankers in the 1930s was partly to blame for the Great Depression, the biggest 'economic event' of the 20th century. And a similar ideological orthodoxy — in particular, a blinkered aversion to 'nationalisation' of insolvent banks — could prolong the current economic agony, says Liaquat Ahamed, a professional investment manager for 25 years who has worked at the World Bank and author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (The Penguin Press, 2009).

In order to increase the ambit of service tax exemption to special economic zones (SEZs), the Union government has allowed units and developers in SEZs to claim refund of tax paid irrespective of whether the services are consumed inside or outside the zones.

Earlier, only the service provider was eligible for tax exemption for services which were consumed within an SEZ by a developer or a unit.

Now, with this new notification, the revenue department has shifted the exemption from the service provider to the developer, and extended the scope of tax exemption on services provided inside or outside an SEZ unit.

Service providers can claim any Cenvat credit on any input or services that are used in providing services at an SEZ.

Frankfurt  - The European Central Bank (ECB) cut rates for the fifth time in six months Thursday, lowering borrowing costs to an historic low and signalling further reductions in the coming months after it slashed its growth and inflation forecasts.

Thursday's hefty 50-basis-point reduction brought the ECB's benchmark refinancing rate down to 1.5 per cent and followed an announcement in London that the Bank of England (BoE) monetary policy committee had also trimmed the cost of money by 50 basis points.

Copenhagen  - Denmark's central bank Thursday lowered its lending rate by 0.75 percentage points to 2.25 per cent.

The cut was effective as of Friday, the Danish central bank said, adding that the cut was "a consequence" of the Thursday decision by the European Central Bank to cut its rates by 50 basis points to 1.50 per cent.

Denmark is a member of the European Union, but not a member of the eurozone.

The Danish central bank said the discount rate and the current account rate were also to be lowered by 75 basis points to 2.00 per cent as of Friday. (dpa)

Frankfurt  - European Central Bank (ECB) chief Jean-Claude Trichet ruled out on Thursday changes to the rules for joining the euro amid calls to help shield troubled Central and Eastern European economies from the global financial crisis.

"I would say that at this stage our position would be that it is extremely important that we do not change any framework," Trichet said at a press conference in Frankfurt following a meeting of the ECB's rate-setting council.

Baghdad  - The Iraqi parliament Thursday Thursday passed a 2009 budget of 58.6 billion dollars, after slashing around four billion dollars off government spending plans.

As global oil prices fell from 150 dollars per barrel in July to little more than 43 dollars on Wednesday, there were increasing concerns that huge cuts might be needed.

Oil exports account for almost 95 per cent of Iraq's revenue. This month's exports of crude oil reached an average of one million and 804 barrels per day.

London  - The Bank of England (BoE) Thursday applied the twin tools of interest rate cuts and a boost in the money supply to revive the recession-hit economy.

The bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) cut the key lending rate by 50 basis points to 0.5 per cent and injected an initial 75 billion pounds (105 billion dollars) into the economy through so- called quantitative easing.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said the injection of liquidity was "absolutely essential to get the economy moving."

Washington  - Lenders are taking back homes in the United States at a record pace as families can't afford mortgage payments, according to an industry report Thursday indicating the country's housing crisis deepened further at the end of last year.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said 3.3 per cent of all mortgage-holders were in foreclosure at the end of 2008 - up 126 per cent from a year ago - and 7.88 per cent were behind on at least one monthly payment.

Both numbers were the highest ever recorded since MBA's records began in 1972.

Tokyo - Japan's foreign exchange reserves dropped 1.6 billion dollars in February after the US Treasury bond prices and the appraisal value of the nation's euro-dominated assets fell, the Finance Ministry said Friday.

The nation's foreign reserves fell for the second month in a row but remained barely above the 1-trillion-dollar level with 1.0093 trillion dollars.

As of the end of February, Japan held 892.34 billion dollars in foreign securities, while foreign currency deposits came to 87.81 billion dollars.

Washington  - The world should adopt economic stimulus plans that carry well into 2010, and possibly 2011, to ease a global recession and must expand financial regulation across all sectors to prevent a similar crisis in future, the International Monetary Fund said in a series of reports released Friday.

The IMF warned that the world economic crisis was showing no signs of letting up, and urged greater international coordination ahead of a G20 summit next month in London of the world's leading economies.

Budapest  - The Hungarian forint continued its downward spiral, hitting a new record low of 317.45 against the euro in early trading on Friday.

Although in afternoon trading the currency firmed to around 313 against the euro, this latest dip is worrying news for one of the EU's most fragile economies.

The weakening forint is bad news for ordinary Hungarians, who face increasing monthly repayments on foreign currency mortgages and loans. The forint was trading at around 250 to the euro last summer, before Hungary was hit hard by the global financial crisis.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama went on the road Friday hoping to tout the success of his economic recovery plan by addressing a group of police cadets in Ohio whose jobs were saved by the funding in his stimulus package.

Obama appeared in the city of Columbus, where officials are facing a 13-million-dollar budget shortfall and had informed the graduating class that they would not be able to join the police force. Their jobs were saved after the city secured 4 million dollars from the stimulus package.

Washington  - The US Congress has been forced to adopt a temporary funding bill to keep government services running through Wednesday, after the Senate failed to agree on a budget that would last until September.

The legislation was needed to avoid a shutdown of most federal agencies at midnight Friday. The House of Representatives and Senate voted to extend government funding until Tuesday and the measure will be signed by President Barack Obama later Friday.

New York  - Business partners of the insurance giant AIG have, since the firm was bailed out by the US government in September 2008, received some 50 billion dollars in payments, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Beneficiaries of bail-out funds from the firm number some two dozen, including the Goldman Sachs group and Germany's Deutsche Bank AG, the paper said.

Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank each received some 6 billion dollars in payments between September and December 2008, to cover exposures they had at the failing insurer.

Vilnius  - Lithuania's central bank intervened Monday to quell devaluation jitters that have gathered pace in the Baltic state in recent days.

After a weekend during which currency exchange offices reported unusually strong demand for foreign currency, Reinoldijus Sarkinas, governor of the Bank of Lithuania, declared that there was no plan to change the current exchange rate of the national currency, the litas.

Brussels - Eurogroup finance ministers were to meet in Brussels on Monday evening amid growing concerns that the European economy may get stuck in recession until 2010, shedding some 6 million jobs in the process.

Latest projections from the European Central Bank (ECB) suggest euro area gross domestic product (GDP) could shrink by up to 3.2 per cent this year, far more than previously expected.

GDP could either fall by 0.7 per cent or rise at the same rate in 2010, the ECB said.

Geneva  - The sub-prime mortgage crisis has exposed the crisis in governments' housing policies and could still hit the middle classes, the United Nations' expert on urban planning said on Monday.

Sub-prime mortgages, given by lenders to people who could not afford them, are widely blamed for triggering the meltdown in US banks and the global liquidity crisis and economic downturn.

Brussels  - European Union finance ministers Tuesday agreed to allow member states to permanently reduce VAT rates in labour- intensive sectors such as catering or cleaning, diplomats said.

The deal, brokered by the Czech presidency of the EU with the help of the European Commission, was expected to end months of wrangling about the effectiveness of such a measure.

While some member states had insisted it would help create new jobs at a time of economic crisis, others had argued it would merely result in a fall in tax revenues.

Washington - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday outlined a broad overhaul of how US financial institutions should be regulated, calling on policymakers to begin remaking the system even as they battle the current economic downturn.

Bernanke said the focus should be on financial firms of "systemic" importance to the entire system and whose failure could lead to a complete collapse of the economy.

Brussels  - The European Union is ready to bail out Romania, the latest European victim of the global credit crunch, the bloc's finance ministers said after a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

"In view of the adverse effects of the global financial turmoil on the economic and financial situation in Romania, the (EU's) Council Presidency and the Commission express the European Union's readiness to support Romania in avoiding risks of increasing market pressures and in achieving the orderly unwinding of imbalances," ministers said in a statement.

Kiev  - Ukraine's government has met International Monetary Fund (IMF) demands by making politically-painful changes to monetary and fiscal law, a move opening the way for more emergency credits, a senior official said Wednesday.

Ukraine's cabinet in morning a morning session passed resolutions drastically limiting where future IMF loans to Ukraine might be spent, among other Fund pre-conditions for further loans, said Vice Minister Hryhory Nemyra, according to an Interfax news agency report.

Washington  - The United States will push for aggressive action to halt the global economic slide at an international financial summit next month, President Barack Obama said Wednesday, emphasizing the interconnectedness of the global economy and again warning against protectionist moves.

Ahead of April's Group of 20 (G20) gathering of the world's leading economies, Obama acknowledged that developing countries were being "hard hit" by the fallout from an economic crisis that largely began in the United States.

New York  - Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates regained the top spot on Forbes' annual list of the world's richest people released on Wednesday as investment guru Warren Buffett and Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim each lost 25 billion dollars.

Gates lost just 18 billion in the financial apocalypse that hit world markets last year and is now worth 40 billion dollars compared to Buffet's 37 billion dollars and Slim's 35 billion dollars.

Wellington - New Zealand's central bank slashed its benchmark interest rate Thursday by half a per cent to 3 per cent, its sixth cut since July.

The so-called official cash rate (OCR) was already at its lowest mark since it was introduced in 1999 and Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard signalled that he would cut it again.

Jakarta - More than 230,000 Indonesians lost their jobs between October and March as the world's fourth-most-populous nation was battered by the global economic downturn, media reports said Thursday.

Most of the lay-offs were recorded in the textile, garment, automotive, shoe-making, and paper industries, according to Sofyan Wanandi, chairman of the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo).

Thousands of job losses were also recorded at palm oil plantations and in construction projects.

Tallinn  - Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said Thursday that the Baltic state could adopt the euro as its national currency by the middle of next year.

"It is possible that Estonia will request an extraordinary assessment from the European Commission and European Central Bank (ECB) this year," Ansip told a news conference in the Estonian capital, Tallinn.

"The purpose of requesting the assessment is so we could join the eurozone from July 1, 2010," he said.

Prague  - Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker Thursday called on the European Union to back bloc's members that face a threat of being put on an international black list of tax havens.

"I can't imagine for a single second that the European Union would agree to placing Belgium, Austria and Luxembourg on a list of countries against which it is necessary to adopt sanctions," he said through an interpreter during his Prague visit.

Washington  - The number of US households in some stage of foreclosure rose nearly 30 per cent in February from a year earlier despite government efforts aimed at keeping people in their homes, according to data released Thursday.

Foreclosures rose 6 per cent from January with 290,631 properties - one in every 440 homes - having received notice from their banks or being in some stage of the foreclosure process in February, industry tracker RealtyTrac said in a monthly report.

Tokyo - Japan announced on Friday it was drafting a new 100-trillion-yen (1.03-trillion-dollar) economic stimulus package, news reports said.

Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said the details of the package would be made public by the beginning of April.

Prime Minister Taro Aso will present the plan at a meeting of G20 leaders in London on April 2, Yosano said.

Reykjavik  - Iceland's battered economy is showing some signs of improvement with inflation appearing to have peaked, the head of a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Friday.

"The crisis has led to a sharp drop in economic activity, but a late-year turnaround remains within reach," delegation head Mark Flanagan said, adding that "the krona has stabilized and inflation appears to have peaked."

Madrid  - The ongoing economic crisis will be deeper and last longer than had previously been thought, German President Horst Koehler warned Friday during an official visit to Spain.

"We do not want to kid ourselves or gloss over anything," Koehler said at the fifth German-Spanish Forum of politicians, business leaders and academics in the presence of King Juan Carlos on ending his two-day visit.

An honest analysis would make it possible to take appropriate action against soaring unemployment and other effects of the crisis, the president said.

Kiev  - Manufacturing in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine is down by nearly a third over 2008 indicators, but recent data gives hope an economic turnaround is in sight, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Monday.

"Practically in all sectors with the exception of energy we already are registering positive growth, and some industries are up as much as 20 per cent," she claimed, in comments reported by Interfax.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama laid out a new effort Monday to help small businesses struck hard by a Wall Street crisis that has cut off their access to loans.

The administration's new plan is designed to jump-start lending by directly investing in frozen credit markets, boosting loan guarantees and forcing the 21 banks that have accepted emergency government funds to report monthly on their loans to US companies.

Nicosia, Mar 17: The Federation of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Chambers of Commerce and Industry have urged the governments of the six states to adopt a more comprehensive aid package aiming to stimulate growth and reduce the effects of the global financial crisis on businesses in the Gulf region.

The Emirates Business wrote on Monday that according to a study it had obtained, the Chambers expected the crisis to spread to other sectors in addition to oil, banks and construction.

Wellington - New Zealand's 4-month-old conservative government moved Tuesday to relax rules governing foreign investors, hoping to attract more outside capital to the country, which has been in recession since early last year.

Finance Minister Bill English said overseas investment could play an important role in an economic recovery and job creation.

Announcing a review of the Overseas Investment Act, English said the current law was cumbersome and the rules often difficult to interpret.

He said an application to buy land near the sea, or otherwise declared "sensitive" because of historical or cultural importance to the indigenous Maori population, had to pass 27 different criteria.

Kiev  - The German real estate developer ECE Projektmanagement on Tuesday announced it was shutting down its operation in the former Soviet republic Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported.

ECE Ukraine, the branch office of the Hamburg-headquartered company, will close its doors for good by March's end with all staff sacked, according to the report.

The company was freezing all operations in Ukraine for the "indefinite future", according to a statement.

Washington  - The construction of new homes in the United States unexpectedly surged in February, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, signalling that the housing downturn at the heart of the US economic crisis may finally have reached bottom.

Privately-owned housing starts in February were 583,000 at an annual rate, up 22 per cent from January but still down 47.3 per cent from the same month in 2008. Economists had expected a further monthly decline to 450,000 last month, according to a Bloomberg News survey.

Bern  - Revised government figures for 2009 released Tuesday showed that Switzerland's economy would shrink by 2.2 per cent and the recession would be significantly worse than had been envisaged.

Previous statistics by the Swiss Economic Ministry had predicted a contraction of 0.8 per cent.

The latest forecast said that if there was an easing of the global financial crisis, Switzerland could see slightly positive growth of 0.1 per cent in 2010, even as the labour market would continue to deteriorate.

Harare  - Revenue from tax on alcohol and tobacco has been the key contribution to Zimbabwe's overall income, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said in presenting a revised 2009 budget to Parliament.

"Indirect taxes made up of customs and excise duty have contributed 88 per cent of government revenue which means that the government has been literally sustained by beer and cigarettes. This is unacceptable," Biti said.

Washington  - The International Monetary Fund must be given more resources to rescue poorer nations battered by the financial crisis, US legislators said Wednesday, calling the global recession a threat to national security.

Democratic Senator John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned the economic crisis had the potential to create "failed states" that could become breeding grounds for terrorism, drug trafficking and other security threats.

Athens - The Greek government on Wednesday froze the salaries of public sector employees earning more than 1,700 euros (2,208 dollars) per month in an effort to rein in public spending.

"The decisions we announce today are difficult," Finance Minister Yannis Papathanassiou said.

Washington  - The US Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate at a record low of 0-0.25 per cent on Wednesday as the United States continues to struggle through a deep recession.

The central bank has held its benchmark federal funds rate at the unprecedented level since December, exhausting its monetary policy options to stem the economic slide. (dpa)

Washington - The US Federal Reserve, in a drastic new effort to keep the financial sector afloat, said Wednesday it would buy up more than 1 trillion dollars in Treasury and mortgage-backed securities.

Surprising many analysts, the US central bank said it would buy up to 300 billion dollars in long-term Treasury securities over the next six months and another 750 billion dollars in mortgage-related assets at the heart of the financial crisis.

Washington  - A key gauge of US economic performance fell in February after rising slightly in the previous month, according to a private research group on Thursday.

The New York-based Conference Board's index of 10 leading economic indicators slid 0.4 per cent on unemployment claims, weak stock markets and consumer confidence.

The increase in January was revised downward to 0.1 per cent, while December was revised to a decline of 0.1 per cent from an earlier increase.

London  - Britain's 2010 International Motor Show has been cancelled in view of "unprecedented challenges" faced by the motor industry in the current recession, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders announced Thursday.

Paul Everitt, chief executive of the industry body said it had been difficult to commit carmakers to the event amid continuing economic uncertainty and plunging profits as a result of plummeting car sales.

New York  - The world's 20 most advanced economies should discuss investment of 1 per cent of global gross domestic product - about 750 billion dollars - into five sectors to build an environmentally sustainable global economy, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said Thursday.

Such an amount could finance a "Global Green New Deal," drawing on the idea of the New Deal launched by US president Franklin D Roosevelt to help put an end to the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Geneva  - Africa is not immune to the world's financial troubles, the head of the African Development Bank said Friday, asking that at the upcoming G20 international economic conference the continent not be forgotten.

"For us, in the low income countries, the crisis is reaching us and hitting very hard," Donald Kaberuka, the bank's president, said.

The continent was witnessing contractions in all major sectors "much faster than we thought."

Kampala  - Uganda said Friday that it is being hit by the global economic crisis and has lost an equivalent of 90 million US dollars in direct foreign investment since the financial slump began.

"The global economic crisis is drastically affecting developing countries and we are getting affected because we are part of the global village," Aston Kajara, deputy finance minister in charge of investment told reporters.

London - British police face an "unprecedented challenge" from protest groups planning to disrupt the summit of Group of 20 (G20) leaders in London early next month, the officer in charge said Friday.

Commander Bob Broadhurst said 2,500 officers would be deployed to stop environmental and anarchist protestors from bringing the centre of London to a "standstill," as they had vowed to do.

The police operation was expected to cost up to 10 million pounds (14.4 million dollars), he predicted.

Washington - Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke Friday was optimistic about the market's responses to a series of crisis measures undertaken by the central bank to stem the financial crisis.

"So far, we have generally been encouraged by the market responses, including the decline in mortgage interest rates," Bernanke said in speech to community bankers in Phoenix, Arizona.

London  - The first giant tanker carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar arrived in Britain Friday amid noisy protests from campaigners who oppose the project on environmental and safety grounds.

The consignment, on board the 316,000-ton Tembek, is the first to be delivered to the deep sea port of Milford Haven, on the coast of Wales in south-west Britain, under a long-term contract signed with Qatar.

Budapest - Clothing giant Levi-Strauss confirmed on Friday that it will close its Hungarian plant by the end of June with the loss of 549 jobs.

The factory in the small southern town of Kiskunhalas has been turning out the company's iconic denim jeans since 1988, when Hungary was still a communist state.

The US clothing company told the local news agency MTI that it had agreed a severance package with its Hungarian workers.

Over 30,000 jobs have been lost in Hungary since the effects of the global financial crisis hit the country hard last October.

Sacramento - A tent city that sprang up in the California state capital of Sacramento and became a symbol of the country's desperate economic plight is to be closed within three weeks, the Sacramento Bee reported Friday.

Mayor Kevin Johnston said the plan was to move hundreds of the tent city residents to "safer, more sanitary" quarters and cordon off the pasture which they had called home.

Budapest  - Hungary's economy is set to shrink by 4 to 5 per cent this year, the head of economic think tank Kopint-Tarki said on Friday.

The economic research institute has issued increasingly grim forecasts over recent months as Hungary's economic gloom has deepened.

In December, the estimate was a contraction of 1.3 per cent, said Kopint-Tarki head Eva Palocz.

New York  - The United Nations called Friday for the injection of 15 billion dollars a year into the global water market to meet daily water needs of billions of people as it marks World Water Day on Sunday.

March 22 each year is dedicated to water, a commodity called "the most precious natural resource" by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

"More than ever we need to work together to use it wisely," Ban said in a prepared message for World Water Day.

London - A leading British thinktank Friday warned of the "grave threat" of social unrest in response to the global recession over the next two years.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), in a paper published Friday, rated the risk of upheaval that could "disrupt economies and topple governments" as "high or very high" in 95 countries.

Singapore - Singapore's poorest were hit hardest by rising prices for food, housing and electricity in 2008, as the city-state's inflation climbed to its highest level in 28 years, data published by the Department of Statistics on Monday said.

Singapore's consumer price index (CPI) for general households rose by 6.5 per cent in 2008, the highest level since
1981 when it came up to 8.2 per cent.

It was more than triple the 2.1-per-cent increase of 2007.

Thailand - Thailand's economy is expected to contract by 3 per cent this year and could contract by up to 9 per cent if the government fails to push through stimulus programmes, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said Monday.

"If the government had no stimulus programmes the gross domestic product (GDP) could contract 8 to 9 per cent this year," Korn told reporters.

The Fiscal Policy Office has lowered its GDP growth projection for 2009 from minus 2 per cent to minus 3 per cent, he said.

Amsterdam - Dutch ING Bank has asked its top 1,200 managers not to accept their bonuses for the year 2008.

Quoted in Dutch daily newspaper Volkskrant on Monday, ING's Jan Hommen, who will formally be appointed as chief executive officer in April, said many managers are prepared not to accept their bonus.

Hommen, who spoke about a "moral appeal" to ING's managers, said the Dutch bank would only pay bonuses during 2009 "after a new reward system has been established."

Budapest  - The Hungarian National Bank opted to maintain its high base rate of 9.5 per cent at a meeting of its Monetary Policy Council on Monday.

The bank said in a statement that the decision was a response to worsening economic conditions and a need to maintain stability and the value of the national currency.

The decision was announced after a morning of wild swings in the value of the forint, when it weakened to 307 against the euro before firming slightly.

This volatility came two days after Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's surprise announcement that he was ready to step down.

Riga  - Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said Monday his government did not intend to approach international lenders for an additional 1 billion euros (1.35 billion dollars) on top of an existing 7.5-billion assistance package, as reported by some media.

"Is Latvia's government requesting an additional billion? The answer is no," he said during a press briefing.

However, Dombrovskis stopped short of ruling out such action in future.

Vilnius  - Industrial production (IP) in Lithuania nosedived by more than 15 per cent in February, according to official figures released Monday by the national statistics office.

EU member Lithuania is the biggest of the three Baltic states with the largest industrial sector. However, its industrial muscle appears to be withering in the face of the global economic downturn according to data from Statistics Lithuania showing industrial production fell by 15.3 per cent year-on-year in February.

January's figures showed a contraction by 5.6 per cent.

Hong Kong - Nearly one in five young people in Hong Kong is out of work as the city's jobless rate is driven higher by the economic crisis, according to official figures released Tuesday.

Eighteen per cent of the working population aged 15 to 19 were unemployed in the first quarter of 2009 compared to just 10.8 per cent in the same period in 2008, government statistics showed.

Beijing - China's central bank on Tuesday said it supports moves towards a global currency reserve to replace the existing reliance on the US dollar to settle international payments.

Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China, advocated a "gradual process" of reform of international currency reserves under the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Hanoi - The Vietnamese government Tuesday reported a record trade surplus, but local economists said they were more worried than pleased.

The state-run newspaper Vietnam News on Tuesday quoted Vietnam's General Statistics Office (GSO) as saying the country spent just 11.8 billion dollars on imports, down 45 per cent from the same period last year, while earning
13.5 billion dollars from exports, a slight increase of 2.4 per cent year-on-year.

Washington - US President Barack Obama took his economic prescriptions to a global and domestic audience on Tuesday, calling for a broader and urgent global response to the world's worst economic crisis in a generation.

Writing in 31 newspapers around the globe, Obama warned that it was up to world leaders holding an emergency summit in London next week to come up with a comprehensive solution to the global recession.

Harare  - After years of jaw-dropping inflation, Zimbabwe is now experiencing deflation, the country's Central Statistical Office (CSO) said Tuesday.

The dollarization of the economy forced prices down by an average 3.1 per cent between January and February this year, acting CSO director Moffat Nyoni told a press conference.

The inflation rate, which fell 0.8 percentage points on January's -2.3 percent, is given only as a month-to-month figure because the complete dollarization of the economy was achieved only in January.

Washington  - US authorities need broad new emergency powers to take over non-financial firms whose collapse could threaten the wider economy, the country's top economic officials warned Tuesday in the wake of the bail-out of insurance giant American International Group Inc.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the bail-out of AIG, which began in September, as critical to the survival of the US financial system.

Dhaka - Bangladesh Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus Tuesday called for national unity to fight the global meltdown, which has started affecting the country's impoverished economy.

"It needs great courage and national unity to face the problem nationally," said the micro-credit guru, who won the Nobel peace prize with his Grameen Bank in 2006.

Speaking after a meeting of a national task force, he said food, energy, power, port and agriculture should have priority when it comes to dealing with the crisis.

Washington  - US authorities need broad new emergency powers to take over financial firms whose collapse could threaten the wider economy, the country's top economic officials warned Tuesday in the wake of the controversial bail-out of insurance giant American International Group Inc (AIG).

Facing a groundswell of public anger over Wall Street and AIG's role in the financial crisis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended their rescue of AIG before lawmakers as critical to the stability of the US economy.

New York  - Despite record losses, the chief of Ford Motors, Alan Mulally, earned 13.6 million dollars in 2008.

The money included 2 million dollars in regular salary plus long- term stock options, the country's second largest car producer said Tuesday in a statement.

Mulally did not receive a bonus for 2008, in contrast to 2007. For the current and next years, he has agreed to a 30-per-cent salary reduction.

Ford reported record losses of 15 billion dollars for 2008 - but still has enough cash reserves to survive.

Washington - The International Monetary Fund will revamp its lending policies to encourage more countries to make use of its emergency funds in the current economic crisis, the financial watchdog announced Tuesday.

The retooling would provide faster access to IMF loans and with less of the usual policy conditions that have scared off some countries. Governments including Singapore and South Korea have rejected IMF funds despite facing massive budget shortfalls.

Oslo  - The Norwegian central bank on Wednesday lowered its lead rate a further 0.50 percentage points to 2.00 per cent, as part of attempts to reduce the impact of the weakened global economy on Norway.

The new cut takes effect Thursday, the central bank said.

Norges Bank deputy governor Jan F Qvigstad said in a statement that "the outlook for the global economy has deteriorated."

Washington - US President Barack Obama will name a task force to overhaul the country's 96-year-old tax code and plug loopholes that could save 300 billion dollars per year, Obama's top budget advisor said Wednesday.

The task force will be headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and directed by Austin Goolsbee, a close economic advisor of Obama's, and should report back by December 4.

Amsterdam  - Eight years after so-called "polder model" politics was officially carried to its grave in the Netherlands, the economic crisis has revived the typically Dutch socio-political tradition of compromise and pragmatism.

Wednesday the labour unions and employee organisations deliberated on the government's proposal for measures to fight the economic crisis.

Amsterdam  - The Dutch government on Wednesday announced a 6- billion-euro (8.1-billion-dollar) economic stimulus plan that will see investment followed by cost-cutting in 2011 to tackle the economic crisis.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, presenting the plan to parliament, said the funds would be spent over six years, primarily on infrastructure projects, unemployment prevention and sustainable energy over the next six years.

Belgrade  - Serbia reached a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a three-billion-euro (4.06 billion dollars) loan over two years, Serbian Minister of economy Mladjan Dinkic said Wednesday.

"The agreement was reached and I expect it to be made public tomorrow by both Serbian government and the IMF," Dinkic told journalists and added that 2.2 billion euros of the loan will be used in 2009.

Amsterdam - The Dutch government on Wednesday announced a 6- billion-euro (8.1-billion-dollar) economic stimulus plan that will see investment followed by cost-cutting in 2011 to tackle the economic crisis.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, presenting the plan to parliament, said the funds would be spent over six years, primarily on infrastructure projects, unemployment prevention and sustainable energy over the next six years.

Washington  - US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent the US currency tumbling Wednesday by saying he was open to enlarging the International Monetary Fund's currency reserves, but rallied again as he clarified the dollar will remain "the world's dominant reserve currency."

His comments at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York were in response to China's suggestion that a new global currency reserve should replace the dollar in order to guard against fluctuations in economic crises.

Paris  - The French labour market shed nearly 80,000 jobs in February, the Labour Ministry announced on Wednesday.

As a result of the tenth consecutive monthly rise in French unemployment, more than 2.38 million active job-seekers are now registered as unemployed in France.

The announcement follows France's worst-ever monthly increase in unemployment in January, when more than 90,000 new jobless were registered.

The French government is predicting the loss of some 300,000 jobs for 2009, but many observers feel that this forecast is far too optimistic.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama headed to Congress Wednesday for a meeting with his fellow Democratic Party lawmakers, some of whom have been skeptical of the administration's massive spending plans to help end the country's recession.

His visit came as the budget committees of both chambers in Congress began debating Obama's 2010 budget proposals - the first step in what is likely to be a prolonged battle over the president's spending priorities.

Washington  - President Barack Obama's administration, in a massive overhaul of the US financial regulatory system, is seeking the power to keep watch on all types of financial firms and to seize failing companies integral to the health of the system.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the plans in congressional testimony on Thursday, arguing that the current financial turmoil has proven the system is "too unstable and fragile" to be allowed to manage itself.

Brasilia - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva demanded Thursday that industrialized countries take responsibility in the efforts to overcome the current global financial crisis, which he said was created by "white people with blue eyes."

In a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Brasilia, Lula again stressed that it is necessary to regulate the international financial system.

Wellington - New Zealand's deepening recession was confirmed Friday when official figures were released showing the economy had contracted for the fourth consecutive quarter last year.

Gross domestic product (GDP) was down 0.9 per cent in the December quarter, Statistics New Zealand said, with a 3.8 per cent slump in manufacturing the main contributor.

The one bright feature of the report was a 4-per-cent rise in agricultural output in the last quarter, driven by increased production of dairy products, which account for about

Washington - US President Barack Obama was to court support from banking executives later Friday in an effort to transcend the furious standoff between the public and the industry over bailouts and bonuses.

The meeting at the White House was to include chief executive officers Vikram Pandit of Citigroup Inc, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

A total of 15 executives from the nation's largest banks were to join the meeting, Bloomberg financial news service reported.

Washington  - Some of the nation's top bank chiefs told President Barack Obama Friday that they would work with him towards the economic recovery, and agreed on the need for an overhaul of financial market regulations.

"Were all in this together," John Stumpf, the head of Wells Fargo & Co, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg financial news service after the meeting. "Were trying to do the right thing for America."

Munich  - The German federal government is to buy shares of ailing mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE), the bank announced Saturday.

The state is to initially recapitalize the Munich-based financier by purchasing an 8.7-per-cent stake in the business, HRE said in a statement.

In the long term however, the German government bank bailout agency SoFFin is to take complete control of the bank, HRE said.

Munich  - Ailing mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE) needs further capital injections from the German state after a loss of more than 5 billion euros (6.7 billion dollars) in 2008, chief executive Axel Wieandt said Sunday.

HRE had confirmed Saturday that the German government is to recapitalize the bank with an initial 8.7-per-cent share purchase.

Wieandt was not able to confirm how much capital the bank needed,

but said this was to be discussed with government bank bail-out agency SoFFin, which is expected to take long-term control to rescue the mortgage lender.

Madrid  - Spain could "continue being proud" of its financial system, Economy Minister Pedro Solbes said Monday, one day after the government announced its decision to bail out the savings bank Caja Castilla La Mancha (CCM).

It was the first such rescue in Spain during the global financial crisis, and made the government's constant reassurances about the solidity of the banking system ring increasingly hollow.

Brasilia  - The Brazilian government enacted additional tax cuts on Monday in the face of shrinking forecasts for gross domestic product amid the global economic downturn.

The move came after the country's central bank on Monday reduced its economic outlook for GDP to 1.2 per cent for the year from 3.2 per cent.

Finance Minister Guido Mantega announced a reduction of taxes on building materials and an extension of a tax break on cars. The government hopes to make up for the expected tax shortfall by increasing cigarette taxes to 30 per cent.

Islamabad - Pakistan will ask the Friends of Pakistan (FoP) forum to provide 30 billion dollars of assistance over a period of 10 years when the group meets in Tokyo on April 17, a senior Pakistani government official said on Monday.

Sardar Aseef Ahmed Ali, the deputy chairman of Pakistan's Planning Commission, told reporters his country would seek 22 billion dollars in financial assistance and another 8 billion dollars in foreign direct investment during the upcoming ministerial level meeting of the FoP.

Dhaka  - Bangladesh's economy is expected to grow at its lowest rate in five years during the current fiscal year, mainly due to the impact of global recession, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) projected Tuesday.

The ADB Outlook 2009, the annual publication of the lending agency, said that the country's GDP growth would fall to 5.6 percent from 6.2 percent in the 2008-09 fiscal year.

It also projects a further decline in growth to 5.2 percent in the 2009-10 fiscal year.

Washington  - US consumer confidence edged up marginally in March after reaching an all-time low the month before, but housing prices continued to plummet, according to two private surveys released Tuesday.

The New York-based Conference Board said its gauge of consumer confidence rose 0.7 points to 26, pulling back from February's level, which was the lowest since records began, amid a deep recession in the United States.

Last month's level was the lowest since the index was created in 1967 and this month's slight increase marked the first rise since November.

Washington - Mexico got encouragement Wednesday from the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its application for a 47-billion-dollar credit line to get through the world economic crisis.

In a statement from London, where he is attending the G20 world finance summit in London, IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn said he would back the application for approval from the IMF board.

Washington  - With the House of Representatives preparing to vote Thursday on President Barack Obama's 2010 budget proposal, Republican lawmakers have presented an alternative spending plan that they argued cuts the deficit while still reviving the economy.

The Republican alternative, put forward in the House of Representatives, has little chance of becoming law as Democrats hold a sizeable majority in both chambers of Congress. But the versions offer insights into the parties' sharply differing ideologies and answers to the economic crisis.

London  - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner praised Thursday what she perceived as Latin American successes in the Group of 20 (G20) summit in London.

She highlighted the elimination of a graph from the summit's final document that had favoured the flexibility of labour laws.

In comments to reporters at the end of the summit, Fernandez de Kirchner said she asked that the paragraph be scrapped based on Argentina's "disastrous" experience with such practices.

London  - Efforts to throw the world's poorest nations a lifeline took centre stage at the G20 summit in London Thursday with pledges of more than 1 trillion dollars in financial support.

The big financial pledges were hailed by US President Barack Obama as "bold action" aimed at "supporting those who do not always have a voice."

They would give the world's most disadvantaged nations a "tool to lift themselves out of poverty," he said.

The G20 moves were also seen as underscoring the importance of the role developing countries play in powering world economic growth.

London  - US President Barack Obama swept onto the world stage at this week's summit of the world's top economic powers with a charm offensive that helped to mark the launch of a new era in American foreign relations.

Obama said he came with the intention of showing leadership by "listening and learning" during a two-day visit to London for the Group of 20 (G20) summit, which included advanced and emerging economies.

Hong Kong - Financial corruption in Hong Kong has rocketed in the first three months of 2009 as the city's economy has deteriorated, officials said Friday.

Corruption cases in the financial and insurance sectors surged 46 per cent in the first quarter, contributing to a
23-per-cent overall rise in corruption.

There were 811 cases reported to the city's Independent Commission Against Corruption between January and March, compared to 659 cases in the same period in 2008.

Santiago  - The ongoing world economic crisis could cause another 3 million people to lose their jobs in Latin America's urban areas alone, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said Friday.

It could also add another 10 to 15 million people to the poverty rolls, which already include 190 million people across Latin America.

The problem is projected to persist until late 2010, an ECLAC official, Jurgen Weller, told German Press Agency dpa.

Geneva  - The European Communities should further liberalize its services and agricultural sector to achieve a robust recovery from the downturn leading to sustained economic growth, the World Trade Organization said in a report Monday.

Liberalization of services should be done at both the internal EC level and with third countries. The WTO secretariat, in its trade policy review, also said the EC should reduce tariffs on agricultural imports and subsidies on exports.

This would advance the full establishment of the EC internal market, the WTO said.

Berlin  - Germany's President Horst Koehler signed a controversial bill into law Tuesday enabling the state to seize control of troubled mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE).

The measure, described as a last resort to stabilize the German financial market, marks the first time in modern-day Germany that bank shareholders face possible expropriation.

The approval followed adoption by both chambers of the German federal parliament and comes after the government took an 8.7-per- cent stake in the shaky lender as a first step to gaining full control.

Dublin - The sufferings of Easter week began Tuesday in Ireland with the announcement of an austerity budget aimed at getting the country's finances back on track.

"We have the capacity and the will to bring this country out of this period of severe economic distress, we can work our way out of our problems," Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said as he delivered the latest financial blow to the Irish people, many of whom are still smarting from the swingeing cuts of last October's budget.

Tokyo - Japan's current account balance was cut more than in half in February compared with the same month a year ago but returned to the black after posting a deficit in January, government officials said Wednesday.

The nation's current account surplus narrowed 55.6 per cent in February to 1.12 trillion yen (11.14 billion dollars) on declining exports, the Finance Ministry said.

The trade surplus in goods and services fell 94.3 per cent from a year before to 53 billion yen.

The income surplus fell 34.1 per cent to 1.1 trillion yen, the biggest fall in almost three years.

Washington - The US Treasury Department on Wednesday launched a new programme to aid US car suppliers who have struggled to stay afloat as the wider industry stands on the brink of collapse.

The plan would focus on parts suppliers for General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC, both of which face possible bankruptcy within the next few months. The two US carmakers are in a race against time to shed massive debt and cut operating costs or risk losing government support.

Tokyo - Japan's key machinery orders unexpectedly rose for the first time in five months in February, giving rise to hopes for a recovery in capital spending and an easing of the recession.

Machinery orders increased 1.4 per cent from January to 728.1 billion yen (7.28 billion dollars) on the back of an unexpected recovery in orders from the non-manufacturing sector, the government said.

The increase was better than the average market expectation for an 8.1-per-cent fall and caused stocks to rise.

Amman  - Two agreements were signed in Amman Thursday under which the German government extended 92.5 million euros (122.8 million dollars) in economic aid to Jordan, an official statement said.

The two accords, part of the German development cooperation programme with Jordan for the fiscal year 2008-2009, were signed by the Jordanian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Suhair al-Ali and the German ambassador in Amman Joachim Heidorn.

New York - The company Morgan Stanley is expected to be hit by its second quarterly loss in a row, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The accounting for a rebound in bond prices is said to be behind a writedown of up to 1.7 billion dollars.

Within the previous quarter the Wall Street firm had already suffered massive losses of about 2.4 billion dollars. The new quarterly results are expected to be published later this month. (dpa)

Washington - President Barack Obama on Friday pointed to some signs of progress for the US economy, which is going through one of its longest and deepest recessions since the Great Depression. "What you are starting to see is glimmers of hope across the economy," Obama said after a meeting at the White House with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other economic advisors.

Beijing - The growth rate of China's foreign exchange reserves has significantly slowed, according to latest figures from the country's central bank. The reserves, the world's largest, rose 16 per cent year-on-year to 1.95 trillion dollars by the end of March, the Peoples' Bank of China indicated on Saturday.

This represents an increase of 7.7 billion dollars for the first quarter, but is 146.2 billion dollars lower than the same period last year.

Beijing - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the economy showed better than expected improvement in the first quarter, according to state media on Sunday. Speaking to reporters in Thailand, the premier said that while down on last year's figures, imports and exports were growing on a month-on-month basis, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Domestic demand and investment in fixed assets also rose, Wen said, indicating that some sectors and enterprises in China were starting to show gradual recovery.

Beijing - The growth rate of China's foreign exchange reserves has significantly slowed, according to latest figures from the country's central bank. The reserves, the world's largest, rose 16 per cent year-on-year to 1.95 trillion dollars by the end of March, the Peoples' Bank of China indicated on Saturday.

This represents an increase of 7.7 billion dollars for the first quarter, but is 146.2 billion dollars lower than the same period last year.

Washington - President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the government's efforts to pull the US economy out of a devastating recession were beginning to show signs of progress. "By no means are we out of the woods just yet. But from where we stand, for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope," Obama said in prepared remarks released by the White House ahead of a speech on the economy, picking up on the more upbeat tone he first sounded last week.

Kiev - New loans to Ukraine's cash-strapped government remain difficult to approve, despite recent attempts at market reforms in country, a senior fund official said Tuesday. "We are continuing our discussions... but at this point is is premature to say, when it might be possible," said Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission head in Ukraine.

Amman - Pan-Arab financial institutions and lending agencies opened a two-day meeting Wednesday to look into the global financial crisis and review strategies for the future.

Finance ministers, central bank governors and the heads of the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund and the Arab Institution for Investment Guarantee are taking part in the talks at the Dead Sea resort.

Washington  - The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday said a number of regions are reporting an easing of the country's economic downturn, adding to some of the small signs that the world's largest economy may be stabilizing.

Five of the Federal Reserve's 12 regional banks reported a "moderation in the pace of decline, and several saw signs that activity in some sectors was stabilizing at a low level," according to the central bank's Beige Book, a regional report on the economy.

Kiev  - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to greenlight an additional 2.8 billion dollars assistance loan to Ukraine, IMF officials in Kiev said on Friday.

An IMF mission visiting the former Soviet republic recommended Ukraine receive the badly-needed credit after meetings with the country's government.

At least half of the money to be advanced by the IMF will go towards balancing Ukraine's budget, mostly by helping service foreign-issue bonds, Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said, according to an Interfax news agency report.

Dhaka  - Bangladesh on Sunday announced an economic stimulus package worth over 500 million US dollars to offset the fallout of global economic meltdown, officials said.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith announced the package amounting to Tk 3,424 crore (500 million US dollars) for the fourth quarter of the current fiscal to increase subsidies in power and agriculture sector, and export sectors.

Asian stocks declined, dragging the regional benchmark index from a three? month high, on speculation companies will take advantage of a six? week rally to sell shares and shore up their finances. MSCI Asia Pacific Index has rallied 26 percent from a more than five? year low reached on March 9, taking valuations to the highest since November 2007. The Bank of Japan will probably cut its forecasts for the economy and prices next week as the recession takes a toll on spending by companies and households. The world's second?

Nifty showed increased volatility around 3430 -3450 which happens to be the 200 DMA of the market and closed below this at 3384. Increasing volatility at this level is obvious as Nifty has rallied almost 1000 points from 2540 to 3510.

A consolidation can be seen around levels of 3150-3400 before market makes new highs.

Riga  - The Latvian government outlined a bleak scenario Tuesday of spending cuts even more stringent than those already announced as the embattled Baltic state struggles to meet economic criteria laid down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking after a lengthy extraordinary meeting of the cabinet, Finance Minister Einars Repse said the situation "forces us to look into expenses we promised to leave untouched earlier."

Those expenses are likely to include politically sensitive items such as pensions and healthcare, which had been partially shielded during earlier rounds of cutbacks.

Washington  - The World Bank will be prodding finance ministers this week to help poor countries that have been left out of global efforts to combat the financial crisis, the development bank's chief said Tuesday.

Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, said the Group of 20 (G20) nations summit earlier this month in London addressed many of the "big global financial problems" facing the world's economies but provided little or no money for struggling developing countries.

Washington  - Latin America will follow the rest of the world into recession this year, despite governments' best efforts to insulate the region from the worst effects of a devastating global financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday.

South America and Mexico will contract 1.6 per cent in 2009 before recovering slightly to 1.6-per-cent growth next year. The slowdown follows a growth rate of 4.2 per cent in
2008, according to the IMF's updated World Economic Outlook.

Washington  - Europe must do better in cleaning up its banking sector, should the continent have any hopes of recovering from a devastating recession, the International Monetary Fund said Friday.

The World Bank meanwhile said some 35 million people in Eastern Europe and Central Asia could be thrown back into poverty by the crisis, and called on on Western Europe to keep trade links alive with its struggling eastern economies.

Technical analyst Hunny Tarika of Fairwealth Securities said that Nifty witnessed good consolidation between 3300-3400 before moving upward to mark its closure above the 200 DMA of 3400.

Tarika said that stock traders are advised to be careful as there were low upside volumes on Thursday & Friday trading sessions.

He added that Nifty is shaping a pessimistic divergence in an overbought region. Those holding long positions should keep tracking their stop losses and any new position should be taken only with strict stop loss.

Wiesbaden, Germany - Annual inflation in Germany climbed to 0.7 per cent April from 0.5 per cent for the year ending in March, according to preliminary figures released on Tuesday. Increased spending on fuel and package tours during the Easter holidays, accounted for the rise, the Federal Statistics Office said, citing data from six of Germany's federal states.

The March inflation rate was the lowest in nearly a decade.

Washington  - The US economy appears to be contracting at a slower rate than in previous weeks in a sign that it is beginning to stabilize, the US Federal Reserve said Wednesday.

But the Federal Reserve warned that economic activity is likely to remain "weak for a time" and decided to keep the interest rate unchanged at 0-0.25 per cent from its last meeting in March.

The Federal Reserve meeting came hours after the US Commerce Department issued its quarterly report showing the economy continued to shrink during the first three months of the year.

Washington - US President Barack Obama called on Chrysler LLC bondholders to make sacrifices in order to keep the nation's third-largest carmaker from filing for bankruptcy.

Obama, speaking at a town hall meeting in Arnold, Missouri, credited the carworker unions for taking the necessary steps to help Chrysler avoid bankruptcy protection by accepting a new labour agreement.

"One of the key questions now is: Are the bondholders, the lenders, the money people, are they willing to make sacrifices as well?" Obama said. "We don't know yet."

Tokyo - Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 4 per cent Thursday on March industrial output data and optimism over a possible US economic recovery.

The Nikkei index surged 339.87 points, or 4 per cent, to close morning trading at 8,833.64, and the broader Topix index of all first-section issues also rose 29.05 points, or 3.6 per cent, to 841.04.

Investors returned from a national holiday Thursday to buy a wide range of issues after the nation's industrial production data for March came out stronger than expected.

Berlin - German unemployment edged up again in April, official data released Thursday is forecast to show, amid expectations that the nation faces a surge in the numbers out of work as global recession hits the jobs market in Europe's biggest economy.

Analysts expect the Federal Labour Agency will say seasonally adjusted unemployment, which reflects overall trends in the job market, climbed by another 60,000 this month after rising 69,000 in March.

Tokyo - Japan's industrial output in March marked the first growth in six months, thanks to increased production in the high-tech and machinery sectors, the government said Thursday.

The March output rose 1.6 per cent in seasonally-adjusted terms, following a 9.4-per-cent drop in February and a record 10.2-per-cent fall in January, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a preliminary report.

Tokyo  - The Bank of Japan on Thursday decided to maintain its key short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.1 per cent as widely expected.

The bank's policy board voted unanimously at a one-day meeting to forego another rate hike as Japan suffers from the worst recession in the postwar era.

Japan's central bank last lowered the interest rate from 0.3 per cent to 0.1 in December.

Dhaka - Bangladesh plans to slash public sector jobs by 10 per cent in response to the global recession, newspaper reports said Thursday.

The move is part of a package of austerity measures drawn up by the Awami League-led alliance government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed against the backdrop of an international downturn that has begun affecting the local economy, the Bengali-language Samakal newspaper reported, quoting a government order.

New York  - New York City will lose an additional 3,750 government jobs in coming months as part of efforts to balance the next fiscal year budget while the recession continues to cause more damage to Wall Street, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday.

The new job losses will add to a total of 13,500 jobs in the city government expected to be eliminated this year. The job cuts would save 3.4 billion dollars in order to balance City Hall's 2009-2010 budget, which begins on July 1.

DIFC Investments, DP World, Emaar Properties, and Dubai Holding Commercial Operations, among others are being placed on negative watch by Standard & Poor, the well renowned rating agency.

The agency says that it was unambiguous whether the Dubai government would step in to support these groups in the middle of "deteriorating fundamentals" and talk of debt restructuring.

Indian Housing Finance major HDFC announced 4.5% decline in net profit for fourth quarter ended March 2009. Housing Lender has registered a net profit of Rs 733 crore compared to Rs 768 crore during the same quarter previous year.

The bleak outlook for real estate sector and lower business for home loans sector has resulted in decline in performance at HDFC. The lending major registered 36% rise in total income at 3152 crore compared to 2317 crore during the same quarter previous year.

The board of directors has declared a dividend of Rs 30 per share for the year.

Washington  - With the US central bank expected to release the results of long-awaited bank stress tests later this week, Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke will testify before Congress on Tuesday on the nation's economic outlook.

Bernanke could also comment on the closely-held results of the two-month-long stress tests, which could be released as early as Thursday.

Washington  - With the US central bank expected to release the results of long-awaited bank stress tests later this week, Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke will testify before Congress on Tuesday on the nation's economic outlook.

Bernanke could also comment on the closely-held results of the two-month-long stress tests, which could be released as early as Thursday.

As a part of cost cutting measure, Dubai-based Jumeirah Group will reduce its staff working days enormously by offering voluntary unpaid leave to cut costs during the current financial year.

The hotel management company’s executive chairman Gerald Lawless, speaking at the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference in Dubai, said, “We have saved something like 20,000 man days in terms of colleagues taking unpaid leave on a voluntary basis.”

He further said, “This has worked very well for us and we will continue to do this throughout the year.”

Multiple entry visit visas would be granted to expatriate property owners in the United Arab Emirates that would enable them up to stay six months at a time.

It was confirmed by the Gulf state in a decree issued on Saturday, "Home buyers had been waiting for legislation for years to clarify their residency rights in the second-largest Arab economy after many of the country's seven emirates allowed foreign investment in property in recent years."

A parliamentary committee has been told by Federated Farmers that since the emissions trading scheme (ETS) would create economic disaster, it should be scrapped.  

The previous government had designed the ETS and passed before the election.

However, it has been put on hold by the new government, which is reviewing it through a special committee of selected members.  

It was put forward by the New Zealand's Treasury on Monday via a report that it hopes the real GDP to drop nearly 1% in the March quarter. Furthermore, in the first quarter, the demand and output declined again, leading to decreases in capacity utilization and the demand for labor.

It has been predicted that output in significant trading partners of New Zealand weighted by their share of exports is expected to decrease nearly 2.5% this year.  

Riyadh  - Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries chose the Saudi capital of Riyadh to be the headquarters for their regional central bank, the GCC secretary-general said on Tuesday.

"An agreement was reached on the headquarters of the monetary council that it should be in the city of Riyadh," Abdul-Rahman al- Attiyah told a press conference after the meeting of GCC leaders.

He added that details of the agreement would be released later and that no timetable had been scheduled for monetary union.

Sarajevo  - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Bosnia on Tuesday signed a letter of intent to realize a three-year, 1.2- billion-euro (1.6 billion dollars) stand-by arrangement aimed at easing the financial pressures on the war-scarred Balkan country.

But Bosnia, consisting of nearly independent entities, the Muslim-Croat Federation Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Serb Republic (RS), must cut budget spending to qualify for the funds, officials told a news conference in Sarajevo.

Rio de Janeiro  - The global financial and economic crisis had a clear impact on Brazil's industrial production, which fell by 16.7 per cent October-March.

The Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) said Tuesday that this was the worst such drop since 1990, when industrial production fell by 19.8 per cent over a similar period.

According to the IBGE, industrial production rose on January, February and March in relation to the previous month. However, in March it was 10 per cent below its level of March 2008.

Sydney - Billion-dollar cash hand-outs to ward off a recession will keep the Australian budget in deficit for at least the next six years, Treasurer Wayne Swan said Tuesday.

But Swan insisted deficits were "temporary" because he had a plan to bring the government accounts back into the black.

"The cycle has been lengthened by the dramatic collapse in demand globally," Swan said.

New Zealand farmers are quite concerned over commodity prices and global market issues and many of them hold a viewpoint that the agricultural economy would worsen in the next 12 months. A new survey has put forward that there has been a 4% increase to 33% in those who think agricultural economy would worsen in the next 12 months, up from 29% at the last survey.

An increased volatility is being anticipated by farmers according to the latest quarterly Rabobank Rural Confidence Survey, with the number expecting conditions to remain stable declining to 38% from 44% previously.

If adhered to the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research latest report, the government's nine-day fortnight scheme may just be an expensive waste.

Today, a discussion document was released by the economic consultancy that focused at the most effective means of dealing with the rising unemployment rate.

The document said international research has shown direct job subsidies to be expensive and tended to be extremely inefficient at creating or retaining actual jobs.
 

Frankfurt - The European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to cut rates to an historic low of 1 per cent and resort to new monetary tools to try to conquer the economic crisis at a key meeting set down for Thursday.

The widely flagged 25-basis-points cut in the cost of the money in the 16-member eurozone comes despite the signs of division emerging in the ECB's 22-head rate-setting council on what new measures the bank should pursue to help spur economic growth.

It has been specified by the Statistics New Zealand Labor Cost Index released today that a much faster growth was noticed in public sector wages as compared to private sector wages in the last year.    

An increase of 3.3% in salary and wage rates (including overtime) in the year to the March 2009 quarter was recorded by the index, which comes as lesser than the revised increases of 3.5% and 4% in the years to the December and September 2008 quarters, respectively.

Berlin - German factory orders surged in March, data released Thursday showed, bringing to an end a series of hefty monthly falls.

The surprise 3.3 per cent increase announced by the German Ministry for Economics and Technology is the first sign of a pickup in key hard data for Europe's biggest economy since it slumped into recession last year. Analysts had forecast a 0.8-per-cent fall in order books.

Washington  - Government "stress tests" of the US financial industry found that 10 of the 19 largest banks need a combined 75 billion dollars to weather the continuing recession, US regulators said Thursday.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that much of the extra capital could be raised from private investors, and many banks would be able to meet the government's demands by simply converting preferred shares into common equity.

Bangkok - Among Asia's export-driven economies, the electronics sector, which generally accounts for 30 to 50 per cent of their exports, has offered the most glaring example of the region's economic coupling with the US market.

Not surprisingly, as the US sub-prime crisis hit in September and October last year, orders for Asia's electronics - a broad category of semi-conductor-based components and consumer goods that covers everything from computers to mobile phones - tanked.

Zurich - The Swiss National Bank (SNB) said Friday it made 4.83 billion Swiss francs (4.28 billion dollars) in profit in the first quarter of 2009.

In a statement, Switzerland's central bank said the main factors behind the result were the rise in the price of gold and exchange rate gains. The valuation gains from gold stood at 4 billion.

The SNB has been taking steps to devalue the franc, particularly against the euro, in part to help the Alpine nation's exporting industry, a major backbone of the economy.

Berlin - German exports posted their first rise for six months in March, according to data released Friday - fuelling hopes that the recession in Europe's biggest economy may have started to bottom out.

The Federal Statistics Office said exports, adjusted for seasonal swings, edged up by 0.7 per cent to 66.4 billion euros (88.46 billion dollars), with imports rising 0.8 percent to 57.6 billion euros.

Analysts had expected the world's leading export nation would report about a 2-per-cent fall in both exports and imports.

Lahore, May 8 : Marred by sagging tax revenue collections, the government in Pakistan's Punjab Province is toying with the idea of bringing beauty parlours and private education institutions into the tax net.

The provincial government expects that by bringing beauty parlours and other indigenous businesses under the tax umbrella could bolster its bank accounts by millions of rupees.

In the month of April the Super Fund posted an investment return of nearly 9%, enhancing its coffers by $1 billion.

From April 1 to May 5 the unaudited performance achieved, puts forward a $1.75 billion jump from the fund's lowest balance in mid-March.

Now the entire fund is up to $12.5 billion, before regaining its level of last August. Thus it has approximately $2 billion more to recover.

Super Fund chief executive Adrian Orr expresses that the result illustrates the futility of attempting to pick and act on short-term signals.

The first quarter saw Dubai-based investment bank Shuaa Capital posting a net loss of 197.9 million dirhams ($53.88 million) since it booked losses on investments.

The bank informed via a statement that the overall results were adversely affected by the losses booked from investments even when the bank had implied enormous efforts to increase profitability through cost-cutting measures. The bank has also concentrated on growing its fee businesses.

Singapore's DBS Group Holdings announced Friday that since the bank made bigger allowances for bad debt, its net profit in the first quarter fell 28 per cent from the previous year.

DBS confirmed via a statement that in the three months to March, the net profit was 433 million Singapore dollars (295 million US), down from 603 million dollars in the same period last year.

The income of net interest during the first quarter was 1.08 billion dollars, up two per cent from 1.06 billion.

Nuremberg  - Germans are growing increasingly worried about slipping down the social ladder as a result of the economic crisis, according to a survey released Sunday.

More than a quarter of those asked (28.4 per cent) expressed fears that their social status could decline, in a survey conducted by market research company GfK on behalf of the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

London, May 11 : The global economic downturn is taking toll on men's mental health, a new survey has found.

The survey, conducted by mental health charity Mind, found almost 40 percent of men to be feeling low with job security, work and money playing on their minds.

The survey of 2,000 adults also found that men are less likely than women to seek help from their GP or a counsellor.

It seems that men are more reluctant to talk about when they were feeling stressed or low than women.

Washington - US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was encouraged Monday by US banks' response to regulatory "stress test" reviews but said that financial firms must better monitor the health of their own balance sheets to avoid another Wall Street collapse.

Banks have agreed to raise the needed capital before a government- imposed November deadline, Bernanke said.