Washington, Mar 21: Sanitation investment of 1 dollar in poor countries would return 9 dollars in productivity, health and other benefits, say UN experts.

Experts said that for every dollar invested installing toilets for people in countries that today are off-track in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for sanitation will return 9 dollars in productivity, health and other benefits.

Some argue that meeting the sanitation MDG is also a prerequisite to the goals of reducing global poverty.

London, Mar. 31 : Britain's economy and public services are being put at risk by the failure of the Government to keep track of the number of immigrants, a House of Lords report will warn tomorrow.

Key decisions on interest rates and the allocation of more than 100 billion pounds of public money are being severely hampered by the "serious inadequacy" of basic data on those entering the country to work and study, it is expected to say.

Islamabad, Apr. 1: Pakistan President Musharraf has said extremism cannot be eliminated as long as economic inequality persists.

In his inaugural speech at the 13th COMSTECH Assembly in Islamabad today, Musharraf called for end of discriminatory distribution of economic resources in the world to eliminate extremism and the sense of deprivation.

The President also said the Muslim world must initiate dialogue with the West to clear current misperceptions.

Hong Kong- Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo arrived Sunday in Hong Kong for a three-day visit and was immediately met by a noisy protest demonstration of people demanding her resignation.

She was greeted by more than 400 protesters outside her hotel in the Wan Chai district shortly after her arrival, with demonstrators accusing her of human rights violations and corruption.

They also accused the Arroyo administration of failing to protect the rights of Filipino migrant workers.

There are about 100,000 Filipinos working in Hong Kong, with about 95 per cent working as drivers or domestic servants.

Berlin - Germany has become the world's second biggest aid donor after the United States, the ministry of economic assistance said, quoting statistics released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and development (OECD) on Friday.

Germany's official development assistance for 2007 amounted to 12.26 billion dollars, an increase of 5.9 per cent from 2006 when Germany was in fifth place on this list of aid donors.

Germany spent 0.37 per cent of its gross domestic product (gdp) on development, well below the government's target of increasing aid to 0.51 per cent of gdp by 2010.

Budapest -  on Friday said that he did not expect to be able so save his crumbling coalition but that a minority government would still stick to plans to cut the budget deficit.

"The most likely outcome is a one-party government," Gyurcsany told a press conference.

Hungary's junior coalition party, the Alliance of Free Democrats, on Monday said it would leave the coalition on April 30 after Gyurcsany announced he was backing off from further healthcare reform.

Tokyo - Development ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) nations Saturday kicked off a two-day meeting to discuss partnerships with emerging economies to increase aid to impoverished regions.

The ministers were expected to increase cooperation in assisting Africa and other developing nations to fight climate change and to push the 2000 Millennium Development Goals which aim to cut in half the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report released Friday showed that the total overseas development aid among the world's 22 major aid donors in 2007 fell 8.4 per cent in real terms.

Tokyo - Japan's foreign reserves rose to a new record in March, exceeding 1 trillion dollars, the Finance Ministry said Monday.

The nation's foreign exchange reserves, the world's second largest next to China, totaled 1.02 trillion dollars at the end of March, up 7.61 billion dollars from a month earlier.

China ranked first with 1.53 trillion dollars, and Russia followed Japan with 465.2 billion dollars.

The rise in the foreign reserves was driven by interest income from deposits and bond holdings such as US Treasuries.

Tokyo - Japan needs to implement reforms to maintain its position as a leader of the world economy, the secretary general of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Monday.

"Japan is still in the first class in any area, ... very resistent" to current global financial turmoil, Angel Gurria said on a visit to Tokyo.

But to remain the world's second-largest economy, Japan needs to implement tax reforms, enhance productivity of its services sector and improve its labour market, Gurria said on one of the OECD's 30 members.

Frankfurt - Proceedings began in a Frankfurt court Monday in which thousands of shareholders are claiming compensation from Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest telecoms provider, regarding the sale of shares to the value of billions of euros in 2000.

Shareholders allege the former state monopoly did not provide accurate information on its assets when issuing the third tranche of shares, when it sold 200 million shares at a price of 66.50 euros, bringing in some 13 billion euros (20 billion dollars).

More than 16,000 shareholders have brought proceedings in the largest case of its kind ever seen in Germany.

Budapest - Hungary's largest bank OTP on Monday said it would not pay out a dividend on 2007 profits and warned that 2008 would be a tough year.

The bank had targeted a dividend payout of around 30 per cent on its 2007 after-tax profit of 208 billion forints (1.28 billion dollars), but gave no reason for deciding not to pay out.

However, it did say that it expected to face challenges throughout 2008 in many of the countries where it operates - particularly in Hungary where economic reforms have jacked up inflation and slashed economic growth.

Despite moves to boost confidence in the world's volatile financial markets, the global economy has entered an uncertain period with the credit crunch and the US mortgage market crisis undercutting economic growth prospects for the coming 12 months.

The upheaval in the US mortgage market and plunging house prices have not only badly shaken economic confidence in the US. The crisis has also sent global investors on a roller-coaster ride as share markets have reacted to the risk of the US's economic convulsions spreading to other parts of the world.

Washington - It was the dot-com bubble that sparked the last recession in the United States in 2001. This time, it is the housing market fuelling an economic crisis that some believe could be the most severe since World War II.

The picture is daunting: Declining home prices have forced consumers to tighten their belts, rising foreclosures have put investors at risk, creating a ripple effect throughout the economy.

Ironically, the main hope for rescue is in the falling US currency which has spurred export and tourism.

Many economists and most Americans believe the US has already entered a recession, and even US central bank head Ben Bernanke ventured in early April that a recession was "possible."

Berlin - A fragile calm appears to have descended on global financial markets after several waves of turmoil driven by fears that the US economic convulsions, triggered by the nation's mortgage industry meltdown, could span out around the world economy.

But the risk of further market upheavals remains high. The new first-quarter corporate reporting season is under way and economists warned it would take some time for the tremors from the first major financial crisis of the 21st century to work their way through the global economy.

Vienna- Some of Eastern Europe's hottest economies are cooling off, but the party doesn't seem to be over yet.

While a credit boom that fuelled several years of consumer-driven economic growth is ebbing, analysts say risks in the region are lower than those that triggered last year's home-loan shock in the United States.

Not that Eastern Europe will emerge unscathed. Growth is forecast to slow this year in most countries from the Baltics to Bulgaria under the impact of tighter credit, central-bank moves to fight surging inflation and the ripple effect of a weaker global economy.

Berlin- End of 2006 - The long-running US real estate boom comes to an end as house prices began to fall.

Beginning of 2007 - Pressure mounts on the risky end of the US housing finance market amid signs low-income earners facing problems meeting their loan commitments.

July 19 - US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warns subprime mortgage crisis could hit US economic growth.

August 1 - German state-owned development Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW) spearheads 8.1-billion-euro rescue operation for business bank IKB.

Moscow - Like a teenager at the wheel of his diamond encrusted Mercedes, Moscow feels invulnerable, set to swerve past the US housing slump and slam through the global credit crunch.

And today's precious fuel prices have armed Russia's economic heavy foot.

"Nothing bad, nothing awful will happen," Vladimir Bragin, an analyst at Trust Bank, said blithely. "If Russian oil prices remain relatively high, there'll be no problem."

Russia's economy in blush is underpinned by plentiful commodities, strong growth spurred by a consumption and investment boom and a banking system that is largely insulated from the paucity of money that has threatened lenders in other markets.

Berlin - Despite sagging global growth, soaring oil prices and the threat of renewed turmoil hanging over share markets, Europe appears to have managed so far to weather the storm unleashed by the upheaval in the US housing market and fears of a major world economic slump.

But now more than nine months into the international financial crisis, another picture appears to be emerging with the global credit crunch triggered by a surge in defaults in risky US mortgages helping to forge a new economic divide in Europe.

In a sense the lingering credit crisis is helping to shape a new two-speed Europe with the current economic uncertainty adding to the European growth risks posed by resurgent inflation, stagnating consumer spending and a contraction in exports.

Buenos Aires - Latin America watches intently as the current US mortgage and credit crisis continues to unfold: Mexico is bracing itself for a rough ride, while Brazil hopes to emerge unscathed from the upheaval, which has triggered global share market turmoil.

Mexico is the 14th-largest economy in the world, but it remains heavily dependent on the United States. In 2006, close to 85 per cent of Mexico's exports went to the country's northern neighbour, which was also the origin of 51 per cent of Mexican imports.

The case of Brazil - the 10th-largest economy in the world - and other South American countries is less dramatic, since their trade is considerably more diverse. Brazil sends only around 18 per cent of its exports to the US.

Tokyo - Japan is facing slowing economic growth as the shock waves from global financial turmoil finally shake the foundations of its economy.

While some economic indicators have been revised down, economists say the negative impact on Japan is unlikely to be as great as in other countries. Japan's situation is serious, but not life- threatening, they say.

Although Japan's economic growth is slowing, Japan can avoid "a serious setback," said Takahide Kiuchi, chief economist at Nomura Securities Co.

Bangkok- The good news is that almost a decade after the 1997 financial crisis swept through South-East Asia, devastating economies and wrecking millions of lives, the region's macro-economic picture is now comparatively strong.

The region as a whole grew 6.2 per cent in 2007, and is forecast to notch up a respectable 5.7 per cent growth this year, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) 2008 economic survey.

As a whole the region is enjoying current account surpluses, high foreign exchange reserves, balanced budgets, low debt, increasing domestic demand and a strong financial system.

Beijing- Premier Wen Jiabao ended China's annual parliament in mid-March with a surprisingly gloomy outlook for 2008, despite the nation continuing its breakneck economic growth.

"I am afraid that this year might become the most difficult one for the Chinese economy," Wen said after the parliament endorsed his economic policies designed to curb inflation and promote more sustainable growth.

"The biggest concern is price rises," Wen told reporters. "This has made the lives of people, particularly low income groups, more difficult."

Riga - The economies of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are preparing for an economic downturn after booming economic growth.

The only former Soviet republics to join the European Union in 2004, they've sustained robust economic growth in the last three years.

The credit boom that fuelled consumer-driven economic growth is slowing down. However, until the rapid wage hikes slow down, it'll be too difficult to say how painful the slow-down will be, economists say.

Estonia is seeing the beginning of the economic downturn, Lithuania lags about one year behind, and the most imbalanced of the three, the Latvian economy would shrink in 2008, the Danske Bank Baltic analyst Violeta Klyviene told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa Tuesday.

Washington  - Financial institutions could suffer losses as high as 945 billion dollars from the ongoing credit crisis and should take immediate action to increase transparency and correct excessive risk strategies that sparked the current turmoil, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

The Washington-based lender said losses from already falling housing prices and the resulting subprime mortgage market crisis would total 565 billion dollars.

Tokyo - Japan's upper house on Wednesday approved the government's nominee for central bank chief after the post has been left empty for three weeks over a standoff between the government and Diet.

The opposition-controlled House of Councillors agreed to promote Deputy Governor Masaaki Shirakawa to the governorship of the Bank of Japan after voting down two of the government's previous nominees.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan decided Wednesday to maintain its benchmark interest rate at 0.5 per cent.

Analysts expected the central bank's decision over concerns about the strength of the Japanese economy.

Seven policy board members voted unanimously to keep the short-term interest rate at the end of a two-day meeting as the bank's governorship remains vacant.

However, Deputy Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, who led the meeting, was expected to assume the bank's top post after the opposition-led upper house of the Diet approved his nomination Wednesday.

Wellington - The head of New Zealand's central bank warned financial institutions and businesses Wednesday against talking the country into recession, saying the economy remained fundamentally sound and creditworthy.

Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard said New Zealand had experienced a record period of uninterrupted growth that left the economy stretched, but urged banks and businesses not to slow down too much in face of a downturn.

"Because we have been so strong so long, some people have forgotten what a slower economy means," he told a chamber of commerce meeting in Marlborough.

Berlin - The German financial supervisory authority BaFin Wednesday ordered an immediate moratorium on the activities of Weserbank, a small bank based in the northern city of Bremerhaven.

BaFin officials simultaneously made application for declaring the bank insolvent at the civil court in the city.

The moratorium prevents the bank from making payments, from selling any assets and from conducting any business with clients.

At the end of last year, Weserbank had assets of 120.4 million euros (190 million dollars). BaFin put liabilities to clients at some 25 million euros. (dpa)

Washington - The United States economy is expected to enter a recession in 2008 and there is a 25-per-cent chance the rest of the world will follow suit, the International Monetary Fund forecast on Wednesday.

But the US recession, brought on by a crisis in housing and financial markets, is a mild one that will likely have a lesser effect on global growth than in past down-cycles, according to the IMF's semi-annual World Economic Outlook report.

Europe has been hit by the US slowdown as well as to a lesser extent Latin America, but emerging economies in Asia, Africa and the Middle East have all shown themselves to be largely resilient.

Washington- For decades, Latin America has suffered badly during economic downturns in the United States, but the International Monetary Fund's latest global growth forecast predicts that a looming US recession will have a "very different outcome" this time around.

Latin America's experience is being replicated in developing countries around the world, as a result of what World Bank President Robert Zoellick this week said were "alternate poles of growth" now competing with the world's largest economy.

The IMF's World Economic Outlook report, released Wednesday, forecast a mild recession this year in the United States and sluggish growth in Europe due to ongoing turmoil in the housing and financial markets.

Singapore- Chief executive officers (CEOs) in Asia are far more upbeat about the business outlook for revenue growth than their counterparts across the globe, a survey said Thursday.

The confidence outlook worldwide over the year ahead took a dive for the first time in five years.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey of 1,150 chief executives revealed a far more upbeat tone in Asia.

In India, nine out of 10 CEOs are very sanguine over the next year, according to the findings in The Straits Times.

China and Hong Kong are tied with Russia at 73 per cent. Fifty- seven per cent of corporate bosses in South Korea are very optimistic.

Frankfurt- The European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to hold its key rate at 4 per cent when the governing council meets Thursday, despite rising inflation in the eurozone on the back of higher energy, food and other commodity prices.

The ECB has held rates at a six-year high of 4 per cent throughout the global financial crisis that erupted in August last year in the wake of the surge in risky subprime US mortgage defaults.

Europe's central bankers faced an "unenviable" task, Germany's Handelsblatt said ahead of the decision.

Tokyo- Japan's current account surplus in February rose 2.9 per cent from a year before to 2.48 trillion yen (24.38 billion dollars) for its second increase in a row, thanks to growing investment income, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.

The surplus in goods and services trade, however, fell 13.8 per cent to 883.3 billion yen, the ministry said in a preliminary report.

Japan's surplus in its goods trade dropped 6.6 per cent to 1.04 trillion yen.

Exports were up 9 per cent to 6.67 trillion yen, and imports jumped 12.5 per cent to 5.63 trillion yen.

Japan's income account surplus, which measures income from investments and interest payments, rose 14.3 per cent to 1.68 trillion yen.

Singapore- Singapore's export-oriented economy expanded 7.2 per cent in real terms in the first quarter despite a slowdown in the United States and turmoil in financial markets, the Trade and Industry Ministry said Thursday.

The growth over the same quarter a year ago was faster than the 5.4-per-cent gain seen in the last quarter of 2007, thanks in part to a surge in drug manufacturing.

On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted basis, Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 16.9 per cent after declining 4.8 per cent in the previous quarter, according to the ministry's preliminary estimates.

Hanoi- Vietnam's Incombank, the country's fourth largest bank, is changing its brand name to Vietinbank effective April 15 to avoid confusion with various foreign banks who use the Incombank name, the company's CEO announced Thursday.

"Vietnam joined the WTO in 2007, and the road map is to open up our financial markets from 2007 to 2011," the bank's CEO, Pham Huy Huong, said at a press conference launching the company's new brand. "There are many Incombanks in China, South Korea, and elsewhere, and we don't want people to think that we are a branch of another bank in a bigger country."

Taipei - Taiwan president-elect Ma Ying-jeou says his new cabinet, in addition to focusing on the island's economic problems, will concentrate on education, ways to reduce the ethnic divide and fight corruption that has plagued the island in the past eight years.

"People naturally tend to think that we will focus on economy. True, but that is only one of our focuses," he said in an exclusive interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa at the National Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), office Thursday.

Washington - Finance ministers and central bank heads of the world's seven leading industrial nations were coming together Friday to discuss a way out of the turmoil in financial markets and a wider economic downturn.

The G7 ministers hope to coordinate new government powers to boost transparency in investment banks, which have suffered more than 200 billion dollars in write-offs from the fallout of the home mortgage crisis in the United States.

Prague - Brazil's President Inacio Lula da Silva said in Prague Saturday he wanted to boost economic ties with the Czech Republic during the first official visit of a Brazilian head of state to the central European country.

"I had an opportunity to show President Klaus the vast opportunities in economic cooperation that are opening before our countries," he told reporters after meeting his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus.

As part of the visit, Czech and Brazilian foreign ministers signed a revamped framework agreement on economic and industrial cooperation "to pave way" for investors.

Washington- Surging food prices could prompt greater global conflict and lead to the starvation of hundreds of thousands, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank warned Saturday while unveiling a plan to help poor countries better manage their natural resources.

"It may be the route of a lot of conflict in the future. If food prices go on how they are today, then the consequences ... will be terrible," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told reporters. "Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving."

Washington- Efforts by industrialized countries to reduce their dependence on foreign energy sources and cut climate-changing emissions has prompted a strong backlash from some developing nations dealing with a worsening food crisis.

The problem lies in bio-fuels, an alternative source of energy that is often made from food crops. The World Bank last week said that a boost in bio-fuels production was largely to blame for an 83- per-cent increase in food prices over the last three years.

Singapore  - The Asia-Pacific region received a larger number of private equity investments in the first quarter of this year, but the value of the deals has dropped, figures from Thomson Financial said on Monday.

Excluding Japan, 195 private equity investments were made in the region bringing in more than 1.67 billion dollars. The corresponding quarter a year ago saw 183 private equity deals with a value of 2.64 billion dollars.

Large deals tend to be leveraged buyouts, which creditors are cautious about in the credit market turmoil.

China led the pack in attracting 571 million dollars in private equity funding in the first quarter. India emerged a close second with 507 million dollars, Thomson Financial said.

Wellington  - Rising petrol and food prices lifted New Zealand's official inflation rate to 3.4 per cent for the 12 months ending March 31, Statistics New Zealand announced Tuesday.

The rate was up from 3.2 per cent for 2007 and 1.8 per cent for the 12 months ending September 30, with a 20.5 per cent increase in petrol prices as the most significant single factor driving the increase in prices, the agency said.

If petrol prices had remained constant over the previous 12 months, the consumer price index (CPI) would have risen only 2.5 per cent, Statistics New Zealand said.

Manila  - Dollar remittances from overseas Filipinos rose 15.95 per cent in February as more highly skilled workers gained employment outside the Philippines, the government said Tuesday.

The central bank said a total of 1.25 billion dollars were remitted in February 2008, higher than 1.08 billion dollars in February 2007.

The February remittances brought to 2.52 billion dollars the total amount sent home by overseas Filipinos for the first two months of 2008, up 15.46 per cent from the same period last year.

Paris  - Driven by rising food and energy prices, annual inflation in France jumped to 3.2 per cent in March, from 2.8 per cent in February, the government statistics office INSEE said Tuesday.

Food prices were up 5.3 per cent over the past 12 months, with energy prices rising 12.7 per cent, INSEE said.

Prices in large-surface retail outlets, such as hypermarkets and supermarkets, jumped by nearly 5 per cent over the last 12 months, again led by the cost of foodstuffs, which rose 5.7 per cent.

London - Britain's inflation rate, measured by the consumer price index (CPI), remained unchanged at 2.5 per cent in March, compared with the previous month, official figures showed Tuesday.

However, the headline rate of retail price index (RPI) inflation, which includes mortgage rates, stood at 3.8 per cent in March, compared with 4.1 per cent in February, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

The British government has set an upper limit of 2 per cent for CPI inflation.

However, the Bank of England has said it expects inflation to rise further over the next few months before moving back closer to the target. (dpa)

Berlin  - German investor confidence recorded a surprise fall in April, a key indicator released Tuesday showed, as a surging euro, high oil prices and doubts about global growth hit sentiment in Europe's biggest economy.

Drawn up by the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research, the ZEW index slid 8.7 points to minus 40.7 from minus 32 points in March. The index stood at
39.5 points in February.

Economists had forecast that the index would rise to minus 30 points in April.

Mexico City  - Latin America needs to invest in infrastructure and carry out fiscal reforms to promote development, OECD Development Centre Director Javier Santiso said Tuesday in the Mexican resort of Cancun.

"China invests 10 per cent of its gross domestic product in infrastructure, and in Latin America the figure is 2 per cent," Santiso said at the World Economic Forum on Latin America.

In a press conference, he said that new fiscal policies are needed, too, but stressed that such reforms must be long term.

Singapore - Investor sentiment took a dive in the Asia- Pacific region during the first quarter of the year, with Japanese the least optimistic followed by investors in Taiwan and Singapore, a survey said Wednesday.

Banking group ING Asia-Pacific said that the findings reinforce the reality that the region is not insulated from global market uncertainties.

The sub-prime crisis and credit crunch remain key areas of concern in this part of the world, said the survey of investor beliefs and outlook in 13 markets.

Hanoi - Vietnam's Construction Ministry confirmed Wednesday that it had requested permission to compensate contractors for rising steel and cement prices, despite a prime ministerial directive in late March ordering government bodies to freeze prices and hold down spending in order to control the country's rising inflation rate.

Budapest  - Shares in Hungary's electricity company MVM and motorway operator AAK could be available from early next year as a programme aimed at encouraging people to invest gets underway, the daily Napi Gazdasag said Wednesday.

The government earlier this year announced plans to sell shares in key companies to ordinary Hungarians. MVM and AAK were believed most likely to be floated first.

AAK shares could be available in January while MVM could be floated in March, the newspaper said, citing a briefing written for Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany.

Beijing - China's monthly consumer price inflation remained above 8 per cent in March, driven by soaring food prices, the government said on Wednesday.

The consumer price index gained 8.3 per cent year-on-year last month, following an 11-year high of 8.7 per cent in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Food prices soared 21.0 per cent, accounting for most of the consumer price inflation, while property prices and rents rose 6.6 per cent, the bureau said.

Berlin  - Inflation in Europe jumped in March, data released Wednesday showed, with last month's consumer prices revised up to 3.6 per cent, and as result reducing the prospects of the European Central Bank delivering an early rate cut.

The move by the European Union (EU) statistics office, Eurostat, to revise up the March inflation rate for the 15-member eurozone came in the wake of rising food and energy prices and followed its earlier estimate of a 3.5 per cent annual rate. Inflation stood at 3.3 per cent in February.

Either way, inflation remains well above the 2-per cent annual target set by the ECB, which has resolved to sit tight on interest rates in the face of resurgent inflationary pressures across the currency bloc.

Dublin  - With the boom in construction over, Ireland's jobs vacancy rate for March fell by 5 percentage points compared to this time last year, according to an Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) survey released Thursday.

According to the survey, which looked at vacancies across the construction, industrial, retail and services sectors, vacancies in construction fell in March by 5 percentage points to 3 per cent, the lowest rate since the survey began in May 2002.

Compared to March 2007, the vacancy rate in the sector has fallen by 7 percentage points.

Manila  - The Philippines on Thursday ordered a moratorium in the conversion of farmland to other uses as the government stepped up efforts to boost rice production amid a looming supply shortage.

"The moratorium on land conversion shall take effect immediately and shall remain in force until further notice," Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman said in a memo.

Pangandaman said the directive aims "to address the unabated conversion of prime agricultural lands for real estate development."

Washington - The US economy got a dose of good news Thursday as a leading economic index rose for the first time in six months, according to a private survey.

The Conference Board's gauge increased 0.1 per cent, after falling 0.3 percent in February, the New York-based research group said.

The index is a measure of the direction of the economy over the next three to six months.

Bethesda, Maryland  -  the world's largest lodging company, Friday reported a decline of 34 per cent in first-quarter profits compared to the same period last year.

Net income fell to 121 million dollars, or 33 cents a share, from 182 million dollars, or 44 cents, a year earlier, Marriott said in a statement. The figures met analysts' expectations.

Higher energy prices, dropping home values, and struggling corporate performance have led to cutbacks in travel.

Washington- Harley-Davidson Inc, which has ridden a wave of rising popularity over the past decade, Thursday reported that profits drooped 2.5 per cent in the first quarter compared to the same period last year.

US sales fell 13 per cent amidst rising energy prices and the declining economy, chief executive officer Jim Ziemer said. The company is reducing shipments to US dealers, he said.

"There's no sign of when things may turn around," Ziemer was quoted as saying by Bloomberg financial news service.

New York - The hard-hit bank mammoth Citigroup is selling a large portion of its North American leasing subsidiary to the conglomerate General Electric.

The move was part of plans by Citigroup's new head Vikram Pandit, who has signalled he would restructure the ailing concern.

Mexico City- on Thursday at the presidential palace Los Pinos, saying at a ceremony that they favoured closer ties between the two countries.

"Mexico is ready for a new stage of educational, academic and cultural exchanges that enrich our highest values, and for a boost towards greater trade and investment flows which accelerate both nations' economic growth," Calderon said.

Paris - The Paris Club, an international group of creditor countries, cancelled 254 million dollars of Liberia's debt and rescheduled a further 789 million dollars, according to a statement from the group Thursday night.

Under the deal, Liberia will not have to repay any of its debt before December 31, 2010, given its "very limited capacity of payment," the statement said.

The Liberian government in turn has committed itself to investing its new resources in poverty reduction programmes and to reaching a similar deal with the London Club of creditors.

Liberia was indebted to the Paris Club by 1.5 billion dollars. (dpa)

Paris - The worst of the instability and rioting caused by the skyrocketing cost of staple foods may yet come, International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a French radio station on Friday.

"The worst of the crisis may be before us," Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, told Europe 1 radio. "Hundreds of millions of people will be affected."

Manila - Deposed Philippine president Joseph Estrada on Friday distributed bags of rice to slum dwellers in Manila as he blamed the skyrocketing cost of the staple on his successor's neglect of agriculture.

Estrada, who has been convicted of plunder but pardoned by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, gave away rice and canned goods to residents of the Tondo slum district on the eve of his 71st birthday.

He criticized the Arroyo administration for abandoning his government's food security programmes and instead opting to import rice and other foods.

New York  - US banking giant Citigroup reported Friday it suffered a net loss of 5.11 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2008 after having to write down 12 billion dollars' worth of loans and bonds in the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.

The first-quarter red ink compares with a profit of just over 5 billion dollars in the same 2007 period and was somewhat higher than analysts' projections, according to the Bloomberg financial agency.

Zagreb - A Croatian district court Friday sentenced a former banker to six and one-half years in prison and to pay 96.2 million dollars in damages to a bank he nearly ruined with unauthorized currency trading.

The dealer, Eduard Nodilo, would however remain free until Coratia's Supreme Court tries him in an appeal.

Nodilo had inflicted more than 100 million dollars in losses to the Rijecka Banka by effectively gambling on the currency markets between 1997 and 2002.

Madrid - Spain's new government Friday approved 11 measures which will inject 10 billion euros (15.9 billion dollars) to buttress up the country's flagging economy this year.

Six billion euros of the total will be reserved for a 400-euro refund to every income tax payer in fulfilment of a promise made by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists during the recent electoral campaign.

The programme focuses on helping individuals, families and companies hit by the economic slowdown on the one hand, and on reviving the economy on the other hand.

Buenos Aires - The impact of rising food prices on world markets is already putting Latin America against the ropes: as regional giant Brazil insists its focus on biofuels has nothing to do with the price increases, Mexico is bracing itself for a hard time, and others are dealing with riots.

"Don't come tell me that (food) is expensive because of biodiesel," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said this week. In the South American nation, the alternative to petrol is made from sugar.

Belgrade  - Serbia's Central Bank governor Radovan Jelasic is one of the country's top policymakers, but his powers were limited, he noted.

Politicians hold the key to Serbia's economic progress and Jelasic, a reformist Western-educated banker, warned fellow Serbs to keep that in mind when they make their choices in early parliamentary elections on May 11.

The vote, pitting pro-Europeans against ultra-nationalists, will be a referendum on Serbia's direction, influencing foreign investment and loans critical to economic growth. Polls suggest ultra- nationalists hostile to the West could win enough votes to form the next government.

Singapore - The spread of the financial contagion beyond the United States has increased the likelihood of a global financial crisis and recession, the executive director of Singapore's sovereign wealth fund warned on Monday.

"We could be facing a recession which is longer, deeper and wider than any recession that we have encountered in the last 30 years," said Tony Tan at a staff conference of the Government Investment Corporation (GIC), which bought substantial stakes in troubled UBS in December and Citicorp in January.

Bratislava  - Slovakia has met the criteria for adopting the euro on January 1, and European authorities have no economic reason to halt the plan, Prime Minister Robert Fico said Monday.

Fico's bullish remarks came after European Union data last week showed Slovakia's 12-month average inflation rate and government deficit within targets to join the euro.

The European Commission - the EU's executive arm - and the European Central Bank (ECB) are expected to rule May 7 on Slovakia's application to become the eurozone's 16th nation and its second ex- communist member.

Munich  - The crisis in global financial markets is already easing, but is not over yet, according to Axel Weber, president of the German central bank or Bundesbank, on Monday.

"Here and there we are seeing signs of recovery," Weber said in Munich. The indications were "that further adjustment processes in global financial markets still have to occur and that the path ahead will not always be a smooth one."

Weber, whose bank is the key voice within the European Central Bank (ECB), said regulators would have to step up their checks.

Amsterdam  - A total of 6,000 low-income households in the city of Leeuwarden, in the northern Netherlands, will be receiving a so-called energy box in May from the municipality.

The energy box, distributed to the people at no cost, contains six energy-saving light bulbs and one LED lamp, the city announced on its website on Tuesday.

The energy-saving bulbs will save the low-income households some 50 euros (80 dollars) per year in energy expenses.

The boxes will be distributed by unemployed people, to give them temporary jobs.

Leeuwarden is the second city to distribute free energy-saving light bulbs. Rotterdam did the same recently.

London - Britain Tuesday announced an aid package totalling 455 million pounds (910 million dollars) to help tackle the crisis over rising global food prices.

The Department for International Development (DFID) said 30 million pounds were in support of recent appeals by the World Food Programme (WFP) for countries most at risk from the crisis.

Hong Kong - Macau, the Las Vegas of the East, is to freeze its gaming industry development over fears that its rapid growth is threatening the former Portuguese colony's economy.

Chief Executive Edmund Ho announced a series of tough measures to legislators Tuesday that included not granting new licences and freezing the number of casinos, gaming tables and slot machines.

The number of gaming concessions would be held at six, he said, and casino operators would also be barred from applying for reclaimed land to use for further development.

Ho told legislatures the action was being taken after a thorough evaluation of the industry to ensure sustainable and balanced growth of the gaming sector and Macau.

Hanoi - Paddy rice prices in Vietnam have increased by almost 10 per cent over the past week, bringing joy to some farmers but adding to the government's concerns over inflation and food security for the poor, an official said Wednesday.

The price of paddy rice in the Mekong Delta, the rice bowl of Vietnam, reached 5.3 million dong (330 dollars) per ton on Tuesday, compared with 4.8 million dong per ton a week earlier, according to Nguyen Thi Nguyet, chairwoman of the Vietnam Food Association.

The paddy rice price has risen by 45 per cent from 3.6 million dong (225 dollars) per ton at the beginning of this year.

Oslo - Norway's central bank Wednesday raised its key lending rate to 5.50 per cent, citing that inflation was picking up.

The rate increase of 0.25 percentage points was due to take affect Thursday.

The bank's latest increase was in December when it announced a hike of 0.25 percentage points to 5.25 per cent.

The governors have earlier said they would operate with a lending
rate of between 5 and 6 per cent through June "unless the Norwegian
economy is exposed to major shocks."

Wellington (dpa) - New Zealand's central bank left its benchmark
interest rate at 8.25 per cent cent in a scheduled review Thursday of
monetary policy and said it was likely to remain at that level "for a
time yet" to keep a lid on inflation.

The Reserve Bank's official cash rate (OCR) has been at 8.25 per
cent - one of the tightest monetary policies in the developed world -
since July in a bid to dampen a booming housing sector and contain
inflation within the target range of 1 to 3 per cent.

Hong Kong - Wine has boomed in popularity in Hong Kong since tax on the drink was abolished in the spring budget, government figures indicated Thursday.

Since tax on wine was scrapped on February 27, the price has fallen by 20 per cent and imports of wine to the wealthy city of 6.9 million have soared by 78 per cent, a government spokesman said.

Supermarkets and wine stores reacted to the budget measure by slashing prices and some stores are now struggling to import enough wine to meet rapidly-growing demand.

Budapest - Hungary's central bank is expected to raise its key interest rate by 25 basis points to a three-year high of 8.25 per cent next Monday, a poll of analysts found.

The median consensus of the poll of 21 analysts by financial website portfolio. hu found a 25-basis-point hike the most likely scenario, although several believed the central bank could possible hike to 8.5 per cent.

The bank hiked rates by 50 basis points to 8 per cent last month, with governor Andras Simor citing long-term inflationary pressures and global economic problems caused by the US recession. The hike was the first in six months and came as inflation remained high.

Berlin - German business confidence fell sharply in April, a key survey released Thursday showed, as concerns grew about the impact on Europe's biggest economy of surging oil prices and a soaring euro.

The Munich-based Ifo economic institute said its monthly index of 7,000 German executives slipped by more than forecast to 102.4 this month from 104.8 points in March, consequently bringing to an end three straight increases in the indicator.

Analysts had predicted that the Ifo would slide to 104.3 in April.

Prague  - The Czech Republic's booming economy is to grow slower in coming years and will be in need of further fiscal reform, according to a survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released Thursday.

OECD predicts that the Czech economy is to slow down to 4.5 per cent in 2008 and 5 per cent in 2009, still well above the Western European average but below the
6.5-per-cent levels of recent years, OECD general secretary Angel Gurria said.

The Czech Republic is one of the most successful post-communist economies that has been fuelled by car and electronics export industries.

According to the survey, the country could reach Western European levels of prosperity in 10 years if it keeps up its growth.

New York  - Record fuel prices pushed US Airways into the red for the first quarter, the sixth largest US carrier said Thursday.

The airline lost 236 million dollars in the first quarter down from earnings of 66 million dollars in the year-earlier period, the Tempe, Arizona-based firm said.

Revenue rose 4 per cent to 2.8 billion dollars, but could not keep up with rising fuel costs.

All six traditional carriers have reported losses for the quarter. A weaker economy has led some airlines to consider mergers, with Delta and Northwest agreeing to come together as the world's largest airline. (dpa)

New York - Emergency food stocks maintained by countries around
the world are at their lowest levels in 30 years, contributing to the
surge in global food prices, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said
Thursday.

The situation has put the WFP and relief organizations in a
difficult situation to meet the needs of the world's most vulnerable
populations, said WFP director Josette Sheeran from her Rome-based
headquarters.

WFP, which had an annual budget of 3.1 billion dollars, has urged
donors to provide an additional 500 million dollars in 2008 so it can
meet demands in poor countries, where the prohibitive cost of food has
prompted riots and threatened people with starvation.

Lima - In another sign of growing global unrest over rising food costs, protesters in the poor Peruvian province of Puno, in the south-east, shut down the region with blockades and strikes.

Most businesses and schools remained closed, and busses and taxis were few and far between, national media reported.

The main roads in the province, 1,300 kilometres from the capital Lima, were made impassable by piles of burning tires, construction refuse and tree trunks.

The initiative for the protests came from a so-called people's congress that included many civic movements.

Buenos Aires - Argentine Economy Minister Martin Lousteau got the boot from President Cristina Kirchner after four months in office over a farmers strike and differences within her administration over economic policy, national media reported Friday, citing a ministry spokesman.

Lousteau's replacement is to be the head of the tax agency, Carlos Fernandez, according to a report in La Nacion newspaper.

Seoul - South Korea's economy recorded its slowest growth in more than three years in the first quarter on a drop-off in exports and falling spending my companies and consumers, the central bank said Friday.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.7 per cent over the previous quarter, which had recorded 1.6-per-cent growth, the Bank of Korea said in its release of preliminary figures for January through March.

In comparison with the same period a year earlier, first-quarter GDP grew 5.7 per cent, the same pace on a year-on-year comparison from the quarter before, the bank said.

Karachi  - The Pakistani rupee on Friday recovered slightly against the US dollar on central bank intervention but analysts said the overall picture remains sluggish on dwindling government reserves and costly imports.

The rupee recovered narrowly at 64.68 against the dollar in the inter-bank market as compared with 64.70/64.80 on Thursday. Analysts said the central State Bank of Pakistan intervened in the inter-bank market a day earlier which led to this slight recovery on Friday.

"The overall long-term outlook is still downward and the rupee will remain weak in coming weeks," said Rehanuddin, FX trader at Invest Cap Securities.

Rio de Janeiro - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Friday that the current international food crisis is "temporary."

"What is happening in the world is that you have more poor people who eat. There are more Chinese, Indians, Africans, Brazilians who eat. And food production is not growing proportionately to demand. This crisis is temporary," Lula said.

Lula has been on a campaign for several weeks to defend the production of biofuel from charges that growing crops for fuel has caused soaring prices of food for humans - an issue that has become an international crisis.

Berlin  Expectations of higher wages and falling unemployment have led to a surprise jump in German consumer confidence, a survey released Monday showed.

The Nuremberg-based market research group GfK said its forward- looking consumer climate index climbed to 5.9 points for May from an upwardly revised 4.8 points in April. This compared to a previous April reading of 4.5 points.

Analysts had expected the index, which is based on responses from about 2,000 consumers, would fall to 4.5 points in May.

Budapest  - Hungary's rate of unemployment remained steady at 8 per cent in the three-month period to March compared to the previous three-month period, the central statistical office said Monday.

Hungary employs a rolling three-month system to track unemployment.

Unemployment had risen by 0.4 percentage points in the October to December period due to Hungary's economic slowdown before coming down slightly.

Hungary is currently undergoing a slump, with economic growth slashed and inflation high due to government measures aimed at cutting the budget deficit. (dpa)

Taipei  - Taiwan's major carrier EVA Airways Monday announced the launch of new flight services to the Japanese cities of Miyazaki and Komatsu beginning June.

"The service starts on June 1 with two flights a week between Taipei and each of the new destinations," the airlines said in a statement.

It will also increase flights to another Japanese city of Sendai from two to five flights a week beginning July 1, the airlines said. (dpa)

Brussels - The euro is often trumpeted as the European Union's boldest and most successful project.

But like school, blood tests or traffic cops, its benefits aren't always readily appreciated.

Less than half of the citizens living in countries that have adopted the European single currency consider it "advantageous," according to a Eurobarometer survey of September 2006 - the latest available.

The drop in support for the euro - down from 59 per cent in September 2002 to 48 per cent four years later - coincides with a growing perception that the new currency has increased prices.

Brussels - No speeches will be made, no champagne will flow. The European Union (EU) is not planning a celebration to mark the euro's 10th anniversary this spring, although it has every reason to be proud of the common currency's success.

Exactly a decade after the historic decision to introduce euros and cents in 11 of the EU's then 15 member states, the Brussels-based union apparently does not want to underscore its internal divisions.

If there were a celebration, which countries would take part? Only the 15 now using the euro? Or all 27 members?

Bratislava - When European officials rule in early May on Slovakia's request to switch to the euro, the impact will likely be felt throughout Eastern European economies.

Leaders in the ex-communist nation of 5.4 million people are eager to crown a remarkable run of growth, fuelled by big-name foreign investment, with admission into the currency club.

But at a time of worldwide concern over rising food and energy prices, the European Union's executive Commission and the hawkish European Central Bank (ECB) must weigh whether Slovakia can keep a lid on inflation, not just now but in the years ahead.

Taipei - Taiwanese electronics giant Qisda, formerly called BenQ, saw its first-quarter revenues surge 23 per cent year on year, the company said Tuesday.

It recorded sales of 29.23 billion Taiwan dollars (913 million US dollars), with a net profit after tax of 1.75 billion Taiwan dollars (54.6 million US) and earnings per share of 1.14 Taiwan dollars. (32 Taiwan dollars equal one US dollar).

Chief Financial Officer David Wang said Qisda's revenues experienced a quarter-on-quarter decline of 5.4 per cent owing to seasonal weakness and exchange rate fluctuation. However, a year-on- year comparison shows a 23 per cent increase in revenues.

Tokyo  - Japan's industrial output fell 3.1 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in March, compared to the previous month, the government said Wednesday.

The March figure was lower than the average market forecast of a 0.8-per-cent drop and the largest fall since January 2003.

The production data at mines and factories stood at 106.8 against 100 for the base year of 2005, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.

The Cabinet Office earlier assessed Japan's economic recovery as having lost its momentum.

The production from manufacturers was expected to decline 0.3 per cent in April but go up 3.4 per cent in May, the ministry said. (dpa)

Tokyo  - Japan's jobless rate hit a 10-year low at 3.8 per cent in the past fiscal year, which ended in March, the government said Wednesday.

The 2007 unemployment rate was better than the rate in the previous fiscal year of 4.1 per cent.

A record number of people were employed in fiscal 2007 at 55.23 million, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. For every 100 job seekers, there were
102 jobs available.

In March alone, the nation's unemployment rate stayed at 3.8 per cent, down from 3.9 per cent in February.

London - House prices in Britain have fallen by 1 per cent over the past 12 months in what was the first year-on-year fall since 1996, figures showed Wednesday.

The figures, published by the Nationwide Building Society, were further evidence of an economic slowdown, analysts said.

The cost of a home dropped for the sixth month in a row during April, sliding back by 1.1 per cent, as the credit crunch continued to take its toll on the property market. (dpa)

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided on Wednesday to keep its key interest rate unchanged at 0.5 per cent.

Nine members of BOJ's policy board voted unanimously at the end of a one-day meeting to maintain its short-term interest rate.

The central bank last raised the interest rate by 0.25 point February 2007 to the current rate.

BOJ's decision came amid concerns over the Japanese economy facing downside risks due to global financial turmoil. (dpa)

Berlin - German unemployment fell less than expected in April, data released Wednesday showed, amid signs of slowing growth in Europe's biggest economy.

Seasonally adjusted unemployment edged down by 7,000 to 3.299 million this month, the German labour agency said.

However, analysts had predicted that the numbers out of work in seasonally adjusted terms would drop by about 35,000 in April.

The release of the latest jobless data comes amid predictions that the German economy is facing a slowdown as the year unfolds.

Economists expect German economic growth to come in at well below 2 per cent this year after expanding by 2.5 per cent in
2007. The German economy grew by a perky 2.9 per cent in 2006.

Brussels - Euro area inflation in April was estimated at 3.3 per cent on an annual basis, down from 3.6 per cent in March, according to preliminary estimates published Wednesday by the European statistical institute Eurostat.

On Monday, the European Commission said it expected consumer prices in the 15-member zone to peak in the second quarter of this year before easing again to produce an average rate for the year of 3.2 per cent.

According to its regular spring forecast, the European Union executive also expects euro area inflation to approach the European Central Bank's target of around 2 per cent in 2009.

The latest surge in consumer prices has been blamed on the increase in the price of commodities such as oil and food.

United Detroit, US - The United States' largest automaker General Motors (GM) announced Wednesday in Detroit a profit loss of 3.3 billion dollars for the first quarter 2008.

With the third straight quarter of losses, the company also reported that revenues for period sank by nearly 2 per cent to 42.7 billion dollars.

Analysts however had expected a great plunge into red ink.

In 2007, the motor company had seen a loss of only 42 million dollars, but in the past three years, GM has suffered total losses of 50 billion dollars due particularly to weakness in the US market.

Singapore - Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong expressed confidence Thursday in Singapore's ability to cope amid the uncertain global economic outlook but warned that "dark storm clouds have gathered."

In his annual May Day message, Lee cited the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States. "We must watch closely how the situation in the US unfolds, and be ready to respond if things take a turn for the worse," he said.

Washington - US President George W Bush on Thursday called on legislators to approve 770 million dollars to confront a growing food crisis in the developing world.

The new money would bring to nearly 1 billon dollars the amount of new aid pledged this year by the United States to address rising food costs, which have spread hunger and sparked riots in poorer countries.

"In some of the world's poorest nations, rising prices can mean the difference between getting a daily meal and going without food," Bush said.

Manila - The Philippine government on Friday assured the public that it has bought enough imported rice to meet domestic demand amid fears of a supply shortage.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said remaining tenders for imported rice by the National Food Authority (NFA) will boost the country's supply stock.

"The NFA has already contracted enough volumes to take care of our gap, and right now, additional procurement of NFA stocks are being done for purposes of buffer-stocking," he said.

New Delhi, May 2: China’s economic boom is expected to last until at least 2020, according to an expert attached with the country’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

According to Chen Dongqi, vice president of the NDRC's Academy of Macroeconomic Research, the cycle that started in 1978 when the reform and opening-up drive, has had its ups and downs during the past three decades. Nevertheless, he says the Chinese economy has registered an annual growth of 9.88 percent during this period.

Last year, he said that the economy expanded 11.9 percent, the fifth year of double-digit growth.

Chen, however, acknowledged the economy still had much room for growth despite the current negative factors.

Washington - The US unemployment rate fell slightly to 5 per cent in April on a loss of 20,000 jobs during the month, well below the 240,000 total jobs shed by the economy in the first three months of the year, the Labour Department said Friday.

The better-than-expected labour report comes after growth figures Thursday showed the economy expanded by 0.6 per cent in the first quarter, easing fears of a recession in the United States.

The Labour Department said manufacturing, construction and retail sectors continued to lose workers, while increases were noted in health and technology.

Washington  - US President George W Bush on Friday welcomed some better-than-expected economic data released in the past three days but said the United States "could do better."

The Labour Department reported Friday that 20,000 jobs were lost in April, the fourth consecutive month of job losses but well below the 240,000 total jobs shed by the economy in the first three months of the year. The unemployment rate fell to 5 per cent from 5.1 per cent.

On Wednesday, gross domestic product figures showed the economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2008, unchanged from the last three months of 2007.

Taipei  - Taiwan's foreign currency reserves hit 289.3 billion US dollars by the end of April, the world's fifth-largest after those of China, Japan, Russia and India, the central bank said on Monday.

Taiwan's April foreign currency reserves increased by 2.5 billion US dollars from March amid the accumulation of interest and the remittance back to Taiwan of Taiwanese life insurance firms' overseas investments, the central bank said. (dpa)

Manila - The Philippines' year-on-year inflation rate surged to 8.3 per cent in April amid skyrocketing prices of food and other basic commodities, the government said Wednesday.

The National Statistics Office said the April index was the highest since May 2005 and up from 2.3 per cent in the same month last year.

The inflation rate in March 2008 was 6.4 per cent.

Hanoi  - Vietnam's prime minister this week approved an expansion plan in which the capital city of Hanoi will balloon to three times its current size, an official said Tuesday.

The city will swallow the whole of neighboring Ha Tay province and parts of six others, increasing its land area from 920 to 3,325 square kilometers, according to a plan approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Monday.

"It is necessary to expand the capital city so that it can function better," said To Anh Tuan, director of Hanoi's Architecture and Planning Department. "With its current size, the city can hardly keep pace with development."

Harare  - In a sign of the growing worthlessness of Zimbabwe's currency, the country's central bank on Tuesday introduced two new banknotes - a 100 million Zimbabwe dollar note and a 250 million Zimbabwe dollar note.

The launch of the new notes, which was announced on state television Monday night, comes barely a month after the Reserve Bank launched what has been until now the largest single note - 50 million dollars.

But with inflation running at over 165,000 per cent, 50 million dollars no longer buys a loaf of bread, which costs about 80 million dollars. A bunch of five bananas also comes out at close to 100 million dollars.

Brussels - The European Commission is seeking to raise spending on economic growth and employment by an annual 3 per cent to a record 60.1 billion euros (92.8 billion dollars) in 2009, according to its preliminary draft budget approved on Tuesday.

Money committed to preserving and maintaining the bloc's natural resources, a spending chapter that includes its expensive farm subsidies programme, is to increase by 3.5 per cent to 57.5 billion euros.

Washington - Members of the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday approved a broad expansion of investment practices as part of an overhaul of how the crisis lender acquires income.

The IMF Board of Governors voted overwhelmingly for the new investment strategy, which includes creating an endowment from the sale of more than 400 tons of gold reserves, worth more than 11 billion dollars. The US Congress must still approve the transaction.

Singapore - Singapore is expected to surpass Hong Kong within 10 years as home to the highest concentration of millionaires in the world, a Barclays Wealth report said Wednesday.

A total of 40.7 per cent of all households, or 436,000, are forecast to boast new wealth in excess of 1 million US dollars by 2017.

Two out of every five households in the city-state are expected to be millionaires by then, according to the report examining the combined wealth of household members.

Singapore ranked second with 23.3 per cent last year, trailing Hong Kong's rate of 26.4 per cent.

Brussels/Berlin - Slovakia is set to receive the green light Wednesday from European authorities to become the second former communist state to join the euro.

The European Commission is expected to say in a report that Slovakia, which joined the European Union in May 2004, has met the tough fiscal targets for adopting Europe's common currency and can adopt the currency bloc in January next year.

Slovakia's adoption of the euro will expand the eurozone's membership to 16 with Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus having been added to the currency bloc's ranks in recent years.

The European Central Bank is also to issue a separate report on Slovakia's euro membership Wednesday.

Manila - The Asian Development Bank said Wednesday that it was allocating 500 million dollars to tackle skyrocketing food costs in the region.
The Manila-based bank also pledged to double lending to 2 billion dollars for agriculture in 2009.

President Haruhiko Kuroda announced the financial support during the bank's annual meeting in Madrid.

"The situation demands early responses by governments with targeted programmes that provide direct assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable as well as policy measures that support open trade and distribution of basic commodities across the region," Kuroda said.

Karachi  - The Pakistani rupee further slumped to nearly 68 against the US dollar on Wednesday amid a shortage of hard money in the local market and rising global oil prices, dealers said.

This prompted the central State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to summon two back-to-back meetings with foreign currency dealers and bankers to streamline the availability of the dollar.

The rupee in the open market was trading at 67.30/67.70 (buying/selling) against the dollar as compared with 66.90/67 on Tuesday. In the inter-bank market, too, it weakened further to 66.45/66.50 against 65.20/65.30 on Tuesday.

Managua - A call for regional unity in the face of a growing food scarcity and soaring food prices was made Wednesday by 15 Latin American countries who are urging an increase in food production through improvements in agricultural technology.

Six presidents and one prime minister were attending the summit on food sovereignty and security at a Managua conference centre, where delegates approved a declaration drafted last month by 13 agriculture ministers in the region.

The document proposes to increase food production by devoting more financial and technical means to the industry. It is set to be discussed at a technical meeting in Mexico later this month, the leaders agreed.

Washington - A key US government regulator Wednesday said it was considering new public disclosure requirements for banks in the wake of a broad financial crisis.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox called for investment banks to report capital and liquidity levels as part of an overhaul of the agency's oversight practices.

Government regulators have been criticized for failing to keep enough checks on investment banks and lenders that have been at the core of a mortgage and financial crisis in the United States.

Bratislava - Slovakia's admission into the euro club crowned a post-communist boom and marked a historic shift that its leaders say will further boost the economy, currently paced by Asian and European carmakers.

Switching to the joint currency on January 1 will spur foreign investment and make business easier for companies with plants in the Central European country, Slovak officials say.

"The euro will bring us additional stability," central bank chief Ivan Sramko said. "No one will automatically get richer or poorer on January 1, 2009, but in the end the euro will contribute to progress for everyone."

Buenos Aires - Argentine farmers' unions Wednesday resumed their strident stand-off with the government, signalling an eight-day strike to block all exports of wheat and bean crops such as soya from the agricultural giant.

At issue is the government's new export tariffs on soybeans and sunflower products that prompted massive street blockades and strikes last month. The strikes were suspended during a 30-day truce to talk to the government.

Cork, Ireland - Ireland's public transport system has improved significantly in recent years, according to locals. But still, there is much to do.

"We need more frequent busses," says Martin Neuin, a restaurant manager in the city of Cork on the country's south coast.

The 30-kilometre journey by bus from his workplace to Bandon in West Cork, where he lives, takes nearly an hour, the
20-year-old says. "I finish work at 4 pm and I am home at 6 pm."

Ireland's infrastructure problems are not confined to the public transport sector.

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can certainly not complain about not having enough excitement these days.

The country is facing renewed financial sanctions through the United Nations Security Council due to Tehran's defiance over its nuclear projects, neighbouring Iraq is accusing Iran of supporting and arming Shiite insurgents, and the West is more and more isolating the Islamic state.

Wellington  - New Zealand's Labour-led coalition government, which would seek re-election this year, moved into damage control mode Thursday after a survey showed unemployment rising and the number of workers falling.

The figures, coming after steady increases in the workforce throughout the decade, took analysts by surprise with Westpac Bank chief economist Brendan O'Donovan dubbing the fall of 29,000 jobs in the first quarter "an absolute shocker."

O'Donovan told the New Zealand Press Association that the only good news was that it might prompt the central bank to start cutting its benchmark interest rate, which has been at 8.25 per cent since July, sooner than predicted.

Frankfurt  - The European Central Bank's 21-head rate-setting council is expected to leave interest rates on hold Thursday for the 11th consecutive month as spiralling oil and food prices threaten to spark a renewed surge in inflation.

Despite a series of rapid-fire US rate cuts and signs of crimping economic growth in the 15-member eurozone, analysts predict that the ECB's governing council will hold its benchmark refinancing rate at a six-year high of 4.0 per cent at its meeting, which this week will be held in Athens.

Karachi - Pakistani rupee further dampened on Thursday on continued lack of foreign exchange in the local market, dealers said.

The rupee in the inter-bank market crossed all time low to close at 67.08/67.20 (buying/selling)against the US dollar as compared with 66.45/66.50 on Wednesday.

In an unofficial open market, however, the rupee traded sideways and fell slightly to close at 67.50/67.80 against 67.30/67.70 on Wednesday.

Washington - The US House of Representatives Thursday approved a costly bill tackling the housing crisis that is largely blamed for an economic slowdown in the United States, setting up a confrontation with the White House.

The legislation, pushed through by Democrats with some Republican support, allows the government to guarantee 300 billion dollars in loans to help struggling homeowners in danger of foreclosure.

US President George W Bush Wednesday threatened to veto the costly bill, which he derided for rewarding "speculators and lenders" rather than individuals struggling to stay in their homes.

Tokyo  - Japan's foreign reserves fell in April for the first time in 11 months due to declining market prices of gold and US Treasury bonds, the Finance Ministry said Friday.

The nation's April foreign reserves amounted to 1 trillion dollars at the end of April, down 11.75 billion dollars from the month before.

Gold prices and US Treasury bonds affected the value of such assets held by Japan, as well as the euro's decline against the US dollar, which also led to losses in euro-denominated assets.

Japan's foreign reserves hit a record 1.02 trillion dollars at the end of March.

Karachi - The Pakistani rupee saw its biggest fall in five years Friday, hitting 70 to the US dollar after the central bank imposed an export ban on euros and other foreign currencies, dealers said.

"There is virtual panic everywhere in the market," said treasury dealer Ali Kadir at Invest Cap Securities.

The rupee hit 70/70.10 (buying/selling) in an unofficial open market against the dollar, compared with 67.50/67.80 Thursday.

On the interbank market, the rupee traded at 69.60/69.80, compared with 67.08/67.20 Thursday.

Dublin - For two-and-a-half centuries St James's Gate in Dublin has been the home of Guinness.

Diageo, the famed Irish stout's British-based parent company and the world's largest producer of alcoholic drinks, brews a billion pints a year of the "black Stuff".

Recent weeks were abuzz with press speculation that Diageo would sell the world brand's historic birthplace and build a new brewery outside the city. Irish Guinness drinkers had taken it hard.

"If Guinness pulled out of St. James's Gate, I'd never drink Guinness again - and I have been drinking Guinness for 38 years, with an average of 40 pints a week," said Martin O'Mahony, a 59-year-old engineer in Cork city on Ireland's south coast.

Nairobi  - Nigeria's Akin Adesina, vice president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), sees the global food crisis as an opportunity as well as a challenge.

"Over the medium and long term, the expansion of agriculture, not food aid, is the only solution," he remarked.

Adesina said it was scandalous that Africa's agricultural output

had declined over the past 30 years, with many African farmers producing too little to feed even their own families. "The agricultural sector in Africa has been neglected for decades."

Hong Kong  - Families in wealthy Hong Kong are skipping meals and going hungry because of the sharp rises in food prices, particularly for rice, according to a survey Monday.

Interviews with low-income Hong Kong mothers in the wake of sharp global food price rises found that 52.9 per cent said their children did not have enough to eat.

Just under 66 per cent said they or their family members had become physically weaker because of having to cut back on food and 78.3 per cent of mothers had only two meals a day to save money to feed their children better.

Jakarta  - Anti-government rallies were held in several of Indonesia's big cities on Monday, protesting against a government plan to raise fuel prices and cut subsidies.

At the capital's main roundabout, several thousand students, activists and housewives began a march to the presidential palace, causing heavy traffic jams along Jakarta's main thoroughfares.

"This (fuel prices hike) will only add to the misery of destitute people. The fuel price hike will cause the prices of other basic needs to increase," shouted Edi Saidi, the protest coordinator from the Urban Poor Consortium.

"We call on the government to cancel its plans to raise the fuel prices," Saidi said.

Beijing  - Inflation in China rose to 8.5 per cent in April, its highest rate in 11 years, as food prices surged, the government said Monday.

The hike in consumer prices from the same month a year ago was higher than March's 8.3-per-cent rate, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

April's statistics showed that food prices jumped 22.1 per cent with meat up 47.9 per cent, pork rising 68.3 per cent and cooking oil up 46.6 per cent, it said.

Prague - The Czech Republic's inflation and unemployment rates were both down in April, according to government data released Monday.

Inflation fell below the 7-per-cent level for the first time in 2008, Czech statisticians said.

Consumer prices dropped to 6.8 per cent year-on-year in April from 7.1 per cent the previous month and a nine-year peak of 7.5 per cent in January.

The April data confirmed forecasts that inflation was falling back from the peak caused earlier this year by the introduction of direct payments in health care, the deregulation of rents, and higher food and energy prices, the Czech National Bank said.

Cork, Ireland  - The view upstream from the Tivoli shipping container terminal in the southern Irish city of Cork shows the River Lee cutting through the centre of the port city.

A few kilometres downstream, the river winds through idyllic landscape, before flowing into Cork harbour, regarded as the second- largest natural harbour after Sydney in Australia.

Here, cargo and other ships find protection from the rough Celtic Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Port of Cork operates along the river at Tivoli, with its 155- metre landing stage and towering cranes, and around Cork harbour, leaving enough space for nature and watersport lovers.

Tokyo  - Japan's current account surplus expanded 16.1 per cent in fiscal 2007 that ended in March to 24.55 trillion yen (236.01 billion dollars), the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

The goods and services trade surplus rose 11 per cent to 9.09 trillion yen from the year before, the ministry's preliminary report said.

In goods trade, Japan's surplus rose 11.7 per cent to 11.71 trillion yen in the year through March 31, compared to the year before.

Exports grew 9.9 per cent to 80.95 trillion yen, and imports were also up 9.6 per cent to 69.24 trillion yen through March.

In March alone, the nation's current account surplus shrank 12.3 per cent to 2.88 trillion yen from the same month a year earlier, the ministry said.

Singapore - Singapore will help North Korea in economic matters, though the city-state is not a big player in north-east Asian politics, Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo said in published remarks Thursday.

"We must be realistic, accept that we are not a major player in north-east Asia, but where we can be helpful and promote trade and exchanges, we should," The Straits Times quoted Yeo as saying, as he wrapped up an official visit to North Korea, the first by a Singapore minister.

Yeo met with North Korea's second-ranking political leader Kim Yong Nam, Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun and Foreign Trade Minister Ri Ryong Nam.

Singapore is the only ASEAN country without an ambassador to Pyongyang.

Tokyo  - Japan's core machinery orders hit a three-year low in March to 956.8 billion yen (9.11 billion dollars), compared to February, the government said Thursday.

The nation's March private-sector machinery orders fell 8.3 per cent from the previous month, which was weaker than the average market expectation of a 5.1-per-cent drop, the Cabinet Office said.

The machinery orders shrank 6.2 per cent, compared to the same month a year earlier.

Manufacturers expected the orders to decline 10.3 per cent in the April-June quarter from the previous quarter, the office said.

The Cabinet Office revised downward its basic assessment on machinery orders.

Manila  - Remittances from overseas Filipinos rose by 9.42 per cent in March despite troubles in the United States economy, the government said Thursday.

The central bank said a total of 1.42 billion dollars were remitted to the country in March, 9.42 per cent higher than the 1.30 billion dollars remitted for the same month last year.

The bank said the March 2008 inflows brought to 3.95 billion dollars the total remittances in the first quarter of the year, 13.20 per cent higher than the 3.48 billion dollars recorded for the same period last year.

"Remittances during the first three months of 2008 reflected the rising number of Filipino workers abroad," the bank said in a statement.

Paris  - The French economy grew by 2.2 per cent in 2007, the government's statistical office INSEE announced on Thursday, revising upward its original estimation of 1.9 per cent.

The result, which is the same as for 2006, was driven primarily by robust consumer spending, which increased by 2.5 per cent in 2007 over the previous year.

Industrial production rose by 2.5 per cent last year, after an increase of 1.5 per cent in 2006, INSEE said.

Purchasing power also increased last year, up by 2.4 per cent after a more modest rise of 1.7 per cent in 2006. (dpa)

Jakarta - Anti-government rallies didn't abate Thursday as the Indonesian government was set to pay the equivalent of 1.55 billion dollars cash to about 19.1 million impoverished families to help them cope with the impact of planned fuel price hikes.

Sporadic protests continue to sweep through more than a dozen cities across the vast archipelago nation for a fourth-straight day, opposing the government's plan to cut subsidies and raise domestic fuel prices.

In the central Java capital of Semarang, dozens of student protestors marched to a regional state-run radio station, demanding a live broadcast of their opposition against the fuel price hikes, Elshinta private radio station reported.

Vienna  - Austria's real GDP growth increased by 0.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2008 from the final quarter last year, Austria's Institute for Economic Research (WIFO) said on Thursday.

Compared with the same period last year, the country's GDP grew by 3.5 per cent, mainly thanks to strong growth in the heavy industry and construction sectors.

WIFO however warned that the growth boost was likely to be only temporary, as the economy was expected to slow during the remainder of 2008 owing to the deteriorating global outlook. Weak private consumption was also putting a brake on growth.

Bratislava - The Slovak economy slowed down in the first quarter of 2008 to 8.7 per cent year-on-year from a record 14.3 per cent the previous quarter, according to government's preliminary data released Thursday.

Slovakia's fast-paced growth has been fuelled by foreign automotive investors. The country, once part of the former Soviet bloc, is on track to adopt the European common currency, the euro, on January 1.

Revised first-quarter gross domestic product figures will be released on June 3, the Slovak Statistical Office said. (dpa)

Brussels - Annual euro area inflation was confirmed at 3.3 per cent in April, with final results Thursday showing that rising food and oil prices were largely to blame.

According to Eurostat estimates, consumer prices in the 15-member common currency zone rose by 0.3 per cent on a monthly basis.

Annual euro area inflation reached its historical peak of 3.6 per cent in March. It was 1.9 per cent a year ago.

In the 27-member European Union, inflation was 3.6 per cent in April, down from 3.8 per cent in March and up 0.4 per cent month-on-month.

New York  - The United Nations on Thursday projected a steep decline in world economic growth to 1.8 per cent this year and 2.1 per cent next year in the wake of the credit crisis, the housing slump in the United States and the drop in the value of the US dollar.

The world's economic growth stood at 3.8 per cent last year.

San Francisco  - Billionaire investor Carl Icahn on Thursday officially launched a proxy fight to oust the Yahoo board in a bid to revive Microsoft's spurned deal for the internet powerhouse.

"It is quite obvious that Microsoft's bid of 33 dollars per share is a superior alternative to Yahoo's prospects on a standalone basis," wrote Icahn in a letter to Yahoo Chairman Ro Bostock. "I believe that a combination between Microsoft and Yahoo is by far the most sensible path for both companies."

Riga - In an old Latvian adage, a king decides between life and death for his subjects with the placement of a comma. Today, the Baltic nation's policymakers face some tough choices in trying to avoid recession.

There has been little good economic news in the Baltics recently - rising inflation, wide current-account deficits and fears of job losses.

After several years of record-breaking economic growth boosted by membership in the European Union, and fuelled by domestic demand and abundance of credit from mostly Scandinavian banks, the closely linked economies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are cooling.

Tokyo  - Japan's economy grew an annualized 3.3 per cent in real terms in the January-March quarter, the government said Friday.

The nation's economy, which grew three quarters in a row, came out stronger than the average market expectation of a 2.6-per-cent growth.

The gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.8 per cent in the three months from the previous quarter, and it was better than a 0.6-per-cent market expectation.

In the year through March 31, Japan's economy grew a real 1.5 per cent.

Lima  - The fifth European Union-Latin America and the Caribbean (EU-LAC) summit was opened Friday in Lima, with a speech by Peruvian President Alan Garcia.

Representatives of 60 countries - including heads of government Angela Merkel, of Germany, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain, and several Latin American presidents as well as European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso - were taking part at the two-day summit, set to focus on the fight against poverty and climate change.

Shortly before the start of the meeting, Merkel spoke in favour of a stronger European involvement in Latin America.

Yeketerinberg, May 16 : In the first standalone Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) meeting which concluded on Friday at the little known industrial Russian town of yeketerinburg, both the emerging economies, India and Brazil rubbished the blame on world food crises and have traded their guns on the developed world for the shortage.

Coming down heavily on the United States, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said, “The root cause of the food crisis is the food subsidies given by developed countries.”

Washington  - In television lifestyle reports, predictions by respected economists and even the US presidential race, there has been no escape for months from the dreaded R-word: recession.

It has been nearly a foregone conclusion that the world's largest economy was slipping into recession, if the wasn't already contracting. But there was an abrupt change in the drumbeat this month, with warnings of economic peril becoming suddenly fewer and less threatening.

"Recession? Not so fast," says the Wall Street Journal.

Karachi - Pakistani rupee on Monday slid by one per cent to close at a new record low as demand for the US dollar continued to soar over rising import costs, dealers said.

The rupee in the inter-bank market hit its lowest level against the dollar to close at 69.60/69.80 against Saturday's 68.30/68.70. The previous low in the inter-bank was on May 9 at 69.40/69.60 versus dollar.

Meanwhile, in the unofficial open market the US dollar soared to more than 70 against Pakistani rupee, dealers said.

Washington - A forecast of US economic growth climbed for the second month this year in April, another sign that the economy may be in better shape than some had feared, according to figures released Monday.

The US leading index climbed 0.1 per cent, and six of the 10 economic indicators that form the index were up in April, the private New York-based Conference Board said.

The increase followed a 0.1 per cent increase in March.

Tokyo  - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided Tuesday to maintain its key interest rate unchanged at 0.5 per cent.

The central bank's policy board voted unanimously at the end of a two-day meeting to forego an interest hike due to unstable global economy and uncertainty over the nation's economic growth.

BOJ last raised the interest rate by 0.25 points in February 2007 to the current rate. (dpa)

Karachi  - The Pakistani rupee continued to tumble against the US dollar and other major currencies on Tuesday as new reports on agriculture painted bad picture on economy, dealers said.

The rupee closed record low at 69.70/69.90 against the dollar in the inter-bank market, dealers said. The rupee was closed at 69.60/69.80 on Monday against the dollar.

Jakarta  - Marking the 10th anniversary of the late president Suharto's downfall, thousands of angry Indonesians took to the streets in cities across the country on Wednesday, venting their rage at a government plan to cut fuel subsidies and increase prices hike.

Amid continued fuel shortages in various cities on the main islands of Java and Sumatra, protestors demanded President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono step down because of his failure to improve the economy.

In the Indonesian capital, around 15,000 students, youths and activists were scheduled to take part in protest rallies at several locations, with the presidential palace the main target, said a Jakarta city police officer.

Tokyo - Japan's trade surplus in April shrank 46.3 per cent to 485 billion yen (4.66 billion dollars) from the same month a year before, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.

Exports rose 4 per cent to 6.9 trillion yen, and imports jumped 11.9 per cent to 6.41 trillion yen.

Japan's trade surplus with the United States narrowed 11.5 per cent to 577.6 billion yen. Exports fell 9.1 per cent to 1.22 trillion yen, and imports to the nation declined 6.7 per cent to 640 billion yen.

In trade with the European Union, Japan's surplus marked the first decline in nine months at 406.4 billion yen, down 3.2 per cent. Exports were up 1.3 per cent to 1.02 trillion yen, and imports rose 4.5 per cent to 609.9 billion yen.

Wellington - All New Zealand workers will get a tax cut on October 1 as a result of a budget introduced on Thursday by the Labour-led coalition government which opinion polls indicate faces certain defeat at a general election due a few weeks later.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen has resisted calls to cut taxes in his budgets over the last eight years, despite New Zealand's longest period of economic expansion since World War II, preferring to spend surplus income on health, education and welfare.

But he succumbed in what could be his last budget, announcing a package of tax cuts totalling 10.6 billion New Zealand dollars (about 8.3 billion US dollars) over the next three years.

Hanoi  - Vietnam will continue controlling gasoline prices and compensating retailers for their losses, postponing a decision in March to cease government payments and decontrol prices, a senior government official confirmed Thursday.

But the official refused to call the government payments "subsidies."

"We don't subsidize prices," said Deputy Trade Minister Nguyen Cam Thu. "The government doesn't use the term 'subsidize'. We will compensate basis prices for enterprises so that enterprises can keep the prices at the levels that the government wants."

Jakarta - Petrol prices in Indonesia rose by almost 30 per cent on Saturday under a government plan to safeguard the state budget.

Officials also began offering fuel subsidies to the poor to help offset the price hike.

"Considering the rising global fuel price and the heavy burden of subsidies on the budget, we have decided to raise the fuel price," energy minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said in Jakarta on Friday.

Hanoi  - Vietnam has attracted 15.3 billion dollars worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) commitments so far this year, compared with 4.4 billion dollars over the same period last year, an official said Monday.

The figure includes 14.7 billion dollars for 324 newly licensed projects and 600 million dollars for expansion of 130 existing projects, according to Phan Huu Thang, director of the Ministry of Planning and Investment's Foreign Investment Department.

"The sharp rise in the FDI inflow is credited to the improvement in Vietnam's investment climate, the country's steady economic growth and its stable political situation," Thang told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Karachi - Pakistan rupee recovered by 3 per cent to a 15-day high against the US dollar following last week's central bank's monetary tightening measures, dealers said on Monday.

The rupee on Monday was trading at 67.60-68.05 (buying-selling) against the dollar in the inter-bank market after hitting as low as 70.00 at one point of time last Thursday.

The central State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) late Thursday slapped various monetary tightening steps to stem rising inflation.

The measures included hiking up benchmark interest rates, popularly known as three-day repo, by 150 basis points to 12 per cent from the previous 10.5 per cent.

Budapest - Hungary's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate Monday for the third time in a row, seeking to fight inflation driven in part by rising wages.

The bank's policy-making council voted to raise the base rate to 8.5 per cent from 8.25 per cent, effective Tuesday, a central bank statement said.

The Hungarian National Bank also raised the rate at each of its last two meetings, including by half a percentage point in March. (dpa)

Frankfurt  - The euro rose slightly against the dollar Monday, continuing a two-week trend, as traders anticipated negative economic data in the United States.

Trading volumes were off as a result of the Memorial Day holiday in the US.

The European Central Bank (ECB) set its reference rate at 1.5761 dollars, up from 1.5742 recorded on Friday. The single European currency recorded a similar rise against the pound, but was steady to the yen and fell slightly against the Swiss franc.

Wellington  - New Zealand's economic growth is slowing rapidly, and consumers have virtually stopped additional spending, according to the Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), the country's most respected independent think tank, on Tuesday.

It said the rate of growth in real private consumption, which was 37 per cent in the 12 months ending in March, was forecast to be zero in the current year.

The NZIER said that private consumption expenditures accounted for about 60 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), so the lack of growth would contribute significantly to the low overall level of economic activity in the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Hanoi  - Economists and financial officials worried Tuesday that Vietnam's inflation rate is worsening despite government measures to slow it, as new figures showed the consumer price index rose 3.9 per cent in May, the highest one-month increase since 1995.

May's price hikes brought Vietnam's year-on-year inflation rate since May 2007 to 25 per cent. Officials were optimistic that government policies to fight inflation were already taking hold when inflation dropped to 2.2 per cent in April, but the new figures dashed those hopes.

Washington  - A key gauge of US consumer confidence dropped to its lowest level since 1992 on Tuesday, increasing prospects of a slowdown in spending as the outlook for the world's largest economy continues to worsen.

The private New York-based Conference Board said its index dropped to 57.2 in May from 62.8 in April.

Growth in the United States was reported at 0.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2008, but most Americans and some economists believe the country's economy has entered a recession.

Brussels  - One in five adults living in the European Union's 15 oldest member states do not have a bank account, according to a study published Wednesday by the bloc's executive.

The figure rises to 47 per cent in the 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004 - most of them former communist states from Eastern Europe.

The study also found that a third of those living in the so-called EU-15 have no savings, while four in 10 have no credit facilities.

Frankfurt - Inflation in the 15-member eurozone jumped to 3.5 per cent in May, data to be released Friday is expected to show, ruling out an early move by the European Central Bank to cut interest rates.

Analysts expect surging food and oil prices will result in the European Union's statistics office, saying May inflation in the economy built around the euro rose from 3.3 per cent in April.

The latest inflation data follows figures released Thursday showing a bigger-than-forecast pickup in credit growth in the currency bloc with the broad M3 measure of the money supply accelerating to 10.6 per cent from a revised growth rate of 10.1 per cent in March.

Brussels - The European Union's fishing fleets should restructure rather than demanding aid to survive soaring fuel prices, the EU's executive said in a strongly-worded statement Thursday.

"There is a future for European fisheries, but only if member states, the sector and the European Commission work together to create a smaller, more fuel-efficient fleet that is better matched to fishing possibilities," EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said in a statement.

Fishermen across Europe have been hard hit by soaring fuel prices, with commission figures saying that the price of marine diesel has shot up 240 per cent since 2004.

Washington - The United States will urge other countries to boost food supplies by lifting restrictions on bio-engineering technologies to drive down costs and alleviate the global crisis in food shortages, a top US official said Thursday.

US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said he will press developed nations to become more efficient in producing food to combat the rising price of food at a UN conference in Rome June 3-5 to address the shortages in poorer countries.

Berlin - German retail sales posted a surprise fall in April, underscoring the growing threat to Europe's biggest economy posed by surging inflation and slowing growth.

Sales dropped 1.7 per cent in April to post their second monthly fall, the Federal Statistics Office said. Retail sales dropped 2.2 per cent in March.

Economists had predicted a modest rise of 0.6 per cent in April. Year-on-year sales were down 1 per cent.

The release of the latest retail sales figures come in the wake of data published earlier this week showing annual German consumer prices accelerating to a higher-than-forecast 3 per cent in May from 2.6 per cent in April.

Rome  - Leaders from 50 countries are scheduled to gather in Rome next week to discuss ways of helping millions of people who face starvation because of surging food prices.

The summit, hosted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is aimed at winning donor pledges for urgent aid and also to generate longer term strategies to safeguard food production.

Presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Nikolas Sarkozy of France together with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, are among the leaders scheduled to attend the summit.

Islamabad, June 2: A new survey conducted in Pakistan ahead of next Budget, to be presented by the new PPP-led government, has revealed that about 95 per cent of the people want the government to cut defence expenditure and give less importance to the defence spending.

According to the survey findings, about 50 per cent of the Pakistanis give top priority to health and education sector, while 31 per cent say agriculture sector should be given priority for overall economic growth in the country, and 14 per cent give priority to infrastructure.

Frankfurt - The European Central Bank meets Thursday with surging inflation expected to result in the ECB leaving rates on hold at 4.0 per cent for the 12th month in a row.

Indeed, the ECB this week marked the 10th anniversary of its founding caught between a rock and a hard place with inflation fears emerging amid signs that economic growth is losing its momentum.

"The ECB is facing a difficult tightrope walk," said Michael Schubert, economist with Germany's Commerzbank.

But with data released last week showing inflation in the 15- member eurozone jumping to a 16-year high of 3.6 per cent in May, ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet is likely to use his press conference Thursday to talk tough about the threat posed by inflation.

Manila  - The Philippine government on Tuesday launched a 2-billion-peso (46-million-dollar) subsidy programme for poor families amid rising food and utility prices.

Under the programme, at least 4 million families will receive 500 pesos to help them pay their electric bills, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said.

Families can only receive the subsidy one time.

"We would be providing targeted cash payments to the poorest of the poor to help them cope with their electric bills," Arroyo said at the launch of the programme.

"The high price of gasoline and everyday commodities hit our poor the hardest," she added.

Luxembourg - Soaring food and fuel prices are a long-term problem and Europe will have to adjust its economy to cope, European Union finance ministers agreed at a meeting on Tuesday.

"The fact of the matter is that there are very obvious signs that things are of a more long-term nature than was thought at the beginning," Slovenia's Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk, who chaired the meeting in Luxembourg, said.

The combination of rising fuel and food prices and labour shortages "are more or less permanent sources of higher inflation for years to come," added Finnish Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen.

Rome - Due to drastically rising food prices, 862 million people around the world are suffering from starvation or malnutrition.

A list comprised by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Rome shows 37 countries which are in urgent need of foreign food assistance. Of these, 21 are in Africa, 10 in Asia, five in Central and South America, and one - Moldova - in Europe.

Following is a breakdown, by continent, of some of the neediest countries:

AFRICA:

-- Zimbabwe: A serious economic crisis is the cause of the food problems, in addition to long stretches of rainfall after periods of drought. More than 4 million people are affected.

Frankfurt  - The European Central Bank meets Thursday with surging inflation expected to result in the ECB leaving rates on hold at 4.0 per cent for the 12th month in a row.

At the same time, ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet is expected to set out the bank's so-called staff projections which are likely to include an upward revision in the bank's inflation forecast.

Manila  - The Philippines' year-on-year inflation rate jumped to a nine-year high of 9.6 per cent in May due to continuing hikes in food and oil prices, the government said Thursday.

The May index was up from 8.3 per cent in April and 2.4 per cent in the same month last year, according to the National Statistics Office (NSO).

It is the highest inflation rate since January 1999, when the index was at 10.5 per cent.

The spike "was primarily triggered by the continuing higher annual price increases in the heavily-weighted food, beverages and tobacco index," the NSO said.

The food index rose to 14.3 per cent in May from 12 per cent in April.

Tokyo  - Japan's foreign reserves fell for the second month in a row in May and dipped below 1 trillion dollars for the first time in four months on declines in US Treasury bond prices, the Finance Ministry said Friday.

The nation's foreign reserves amounted to 996.98 billion dollars, down 6.86 billion dollars from late April after hitting a record 1.02 trillion dollars in late March.

Japan had 853.51 billion dollars in foreign securities as of May 31.

Of 116.5 billion dollars in foreign currency deposits, Japan held 6.1 billion dollars in foreign central banks and the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements, 24.98 billion dollars in Japanese banks and 85.41 billion dollars in foreign financial institutions.

Tokyo  - Japan's foreign reserves fell below 1 trillion dollars for the first time in May due to declines in US Treasury bond prices, the Finance Ministry said Friday.

The nation's foreign reserves amounted to 996.98 billion dollars in May, down 6.86 billion dollars from late April, after hitting record 1.02 trillion in late March.

Japan had 853.51 billion dollars in foreign securities as of May 31.

Of 116.50 billion dollars in foreign currency deposits, Japan held 6.10 billion dollars in foreign central banks and the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements, 24.98 billion dollars in Japanese banks and 85.41 billion dollars in foreign financial institutions.

Gold reserves came to 21.79 billion.

Luxembourg - European Union government ministers were Friday engaged in tough talks aimed at reaching a make-or-break compromise on efforts to increase competition in their energy markets.

The talks among ministers in Luxembourg showed that member states remained strongly divided over the issue, prompting EU officials to warn that if a solution was not found, the plans would have to be shelved.

"A failure today to reach a compromise will be a failure for everyone," warned EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

Madrid - Protests against high fuel prices spread Friday in Spain, where independent freight transporters launched an indefinite strike.

Hundreds of lorries blocked a highway leading to the Catalan capital Barcelona. Catalan farmers also used tractors to hamper traffic, and lorry drivers staged similar protests in the eastern Valencia region.

The demonstrators are demanding cuts in fuel-related taxes, a proposal that the government has rejected.

Rising fuel costs could kills thousands of jobs, the protesters said. Other transport unions have announced a strike from Monday.

Beijing  - China's rising grain demand is poised to exacerbate the global food crisis over the next years.

Having only 7 per cent of the world's total farmable land at its disposal, the country nevertheless has to feed about one-fifth of the earth's population.

Despite the government's one-child policy, China's population of 1.3 billion not only steadily increases, but with rising living standards they also consume more meat, and thus ever more grain is needed as livestock feed.

The country's self-sufficiency policy had already reached its limitations long ago.

Bangkok - Thailand's Ministry of Agriculture is seeking a 100 million baht (3.1 million dollars) budget to promote Thai fruits at the Beijing Olympic Games, state media reported on Sunday.

Agriculture Minister Somsak Prissananantakul told the Thai News Agency that the Chinese government has given Thailand permission to supply complimentary fruit to athletes and officials attending the 2008 Olympics, which should prove a good marketing opportunity for the country's rather exotic items such as rambutans, mangosteens, pomelos, durians and longans.

He said his ministry will ask the cabinet on Tuesday for a 100-million-baht budget be spend on buying fruit from growers and setting up exhibits at key Chinese tourist destinations.

Tokyo  - Japan's core machinery orders rose 5.5 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in April to 1.01 trillion yen (9.58 billion dollars), compared to the month before, the government said Tuesday.

The April figure was stronger than the average market expectation of a 2.7-per-cent rise.

But the government maintained its basic assessment as "weakening."

"Although core orders rebounded in April, the total amount of orders is still at a relatively low level," a Cabinet Office official said.

April core orders expanded on robust demand from shipbuilders, and transport equipment and general machinery makers for items such as internal combustion engines, railroad vehicles and telecommunications equipment.

Hong Kong  - Hundreds of lorry drivers marched on Hong Kong's government offices Tuesday demanding a cut in fuel duty to offset soaring diesel prices.

Around 300 drivers marched to central government offices demanding talks with the territory's chief executive Donald Tsang while 20 trucks and lorries staged a go-slow through the city centre.

Drivers and operators say they are struggling to make a living because of a 25-per-cent rise in fuel costs in recent months and want government tax on diesel shelved.

There was no immediate response to the demands from Tsang and his government, which imposes duty of 1.11 Hong Kong dollars (14 US cents) on each litre of diesel.

Prague  - The Czech Republic's economy slowed down in the first quarter of 2008 to a growth of 5.3 per cent year-on-year, down from 6.3 per cent in the previous quarter, according to revised government data released Tuesday.

The Czech Statistical Office said that a drop in household and public spending was behind the slower economic pace, which was still above the eurozone's first-quarter growth of 2.2 per cent.

The Czech economy has boomed in recent years amid investments by foreign automotive and electronics makers.

According to revised data also released Tuesday, the Czech economy grew 6.3 per cent in 2005, 6.8 per cent in 2006 and 6.6 per cent in 2007.

Helsinki - The slowdown in the global economy contributed to a drop in the number of passengers who flew with Finnish carrier Finnair in May, the group said Tuesday.

Finnair said it flew some 554,000 passengers in May, down 3 per cent from the corresponding period of 2007.

In a statement, the group said demand for flights to China and India had levelled off, impacting the carrier's load factor - a measurement of how many seats are filled.

While Finnair reported a 15 per cent increase in passengers to Asia in May, expanded capacity meant a drop in the load factor to 62.6 per cent, down 10 points on the corresponding business period 2007.

Berlin  - The world's leading industrial nations are to consider steps to increase transparency in the world oil market, a senior German official said Tuesday amid growing fears of resurgent inflation.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin, deputy Finance Minister Thomas Mirow said Group of Eight (G8) finance ministers meeting in Japan this week would move "to get a grip" on oil prices which last week surged to an all-time high of just short of 140 dollars a barrel.

Tokyo  - The Japanese economy grew more strongly than expected in the first quarter of 2008 after the government corrected its original annual growth figure for the world's second largest national economy from 3.3 per cent to 4.0 per cent.

Thanks to exports and consumer spending Japanese business grew 1.0 per cent as compared to the final quarter of 2007. However economists forecast a downturn in corporate earnings and consumer confidence in coming months due to increasing food prices. (dpa)

Tokyo  - Japan's April current account surplus made the largest fall in more than five years due to increasing imports, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

The nation's current account surplus narrowed 29.6 per in April to 1.38 trillion yen (12.93 billion dollars), compared to the same month a year before.

The largest decline was recorded in January 2003, when the current account surplus shrank 34.5 per cent.

Goods and services trade shrank 60.3 per cent in April to 199.4 billion yen.

Goods trade fell 38.4 per cent to 634.7 billion yen.

Exports grew 4.9 per cent to 6.6 trillion yen, and imports jumped 13.4 per cent to 5.97 trillion yen.

Paris - French consumer prices rose by 0.5 per cent in May, bringing year-on-year inflation to 3.5 per cent, the highest level since 1991, the government's statistical office INSEE said Wednesday.

The rise in consumer prices was primarily driven by the soaring cost of energy, which rose by 4.2 per cent over one month and 15.4 per cent year-on-year.

In addition, food prices increased by 1 per cent in May, and were up 5.7 per cent over the past 12 months, INSEE said.

The high inflation rate puts additional pressure on President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose popularity ratings remain low, in part because he is perceived to be incapable of raising the purchasing power of the French. (dpa)

Beijing  - Soaring food costs kept China's monthly consumer price inflation at close to 8 per cent in May, but a small decline from April was expected to continue for the next few months, the government said on Thursday.

The consumer price index (CPI) jumped 7.7 per cent year-on-year in May, fuelled mainly by a rise of 19.9 per cent in food prices compared with May 2007, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

The figure was down marginally from the 8.5-per-cent rise in the CPI in April and the 12-year high of 8.7 per cent in February.

Hanoi  - Vietnam's State Bank Thursday dismissed rumors of planned currency reforms and possible bank failures, one day after it devalued the dong and raised interest rates.

"There will be no change in the money at this time, and no banks will collapse," said Duong Quoc Anh, director of the State Bank's Banking Department. "The Prime Minister has said that there will be no currency change. The State Bank governor has said that no banks are in trouble at all."

After the State Bank raised the prime interest rate from 12 to 14 per cent effective Wednesday, rumors spread among Vietnamese depositors that some banks might be about to fail.

Riga- The Latvian government plans to cut spending by 263 million lats (577.6 million dollars) to keep the 2008 budget at a 0.5-per-cent surplus of gross domestic product (GDP), the government decided during an extraordinary session on Thursday.

Each ministry will have to cut 5.9 per cent of expenses, Minister of Interior Mareks Seglins told journalists following the session. The government also plans to eliminate existing job vacancies and decrease state purchases.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan decided Friday to maintain its key short-term interest rate at 0.5 per cent amid growing fears of inflation.

The policy board of Japan's central bank voted unanimously at the end of a two-day meeting to forgo an interest-rate hike, keeping the overnight lending rate the lowest among the world's major economies.

The interest rate has remained unchanged since February 2007, when the bank raised it from 0.25 per cent.

Manila  - Remittances from overseas Filipinos rose 14.51 per cent in the first four months of the year due to the continuing high demand of Filipino workers abroad, the government said Friday.

The central bank said remittances from January to April reached 5.36 billion dollars, compared to 4.68 billion dollars in the same four-month period last year.

In April alone, remittances rose 18.35 per cent to 1.41 billion dollars from 1.19 billion dollars in the same month last year.

"The continued rise in remittances for the period January-April was partly fuelled by the double-digit growth in the number of deployed Filipino workers," the central bank said in a statement.

Berlin  - German inflation hit three per cent in May, the nation's statistics office confirmed Friday, amid growing concerns about the threat posed to the world economy by surging consumer prices.

The release of the latest inflation data for Europe's biggest economy came as part of the buildup to next month's Group of Eight (G8) leaders meeting in Japan where resurgent inflationary pressures are likely to be a key item on the agenda.

Surging oil and food prices are also the key theme at a G8 finance ministers' meeting in Japan Friday.

Washington - US consumer prices rose at a seasonally- adjusted 0.6 per cent in May, up from 0.2 per cent in the previous month, the US Labour Department said Friday.

The higher inflation rate was largely thanks to surging petrol prices across the United States.

The department's energy index jumped 4.4 per cent in May, while core prices - which exclude volatile food and energy - rose only 0.2 per cent.

Consumer prices were up 4.2 per cent from May 2007, the department said.

The Federal Reserve has hinted it may halt a string of drastic interest rate cuts carried out since September in an effort to balance the risks of a sluggish US economy and higher commodity prices. (dpa)

Osaka, Japan  - The finance ministers of the world's seven richest states and Russia on Saturday continued their meeting in Japan, as inflation woes threatened to sideline climate change, development topics.

The members of the Group of Eight (G8) said they would focus their talks on means to tackle rising energy and commodity prices, with increasing transparency in the oil market as one promising approach.

Differing priorities of the individual G8 members as well as developing countries however diminish the likelihood of strong concerted action on oil and commodity prices.

Seoul - South Korean President Lee Myung Bak told finance ministers at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Monday that international cooperation is needed to combat soaring oil and food prices.

After a "decade of boom and prosperity" the global economy is facing the "biggest crisis since the oil shock era in the 1970s," said Lee in a speech to the finance ministers at the one-day meeting on the South Korean island Cheju.

Berlin - Surging energy costs, the strong euro and a sense of growing uncertainty among consumers have combined to undercut the mood among German companies, a survey released Monday showed.

"The upswing will lose significant drive in the coming 12 months," said Germany's Chamber of Industry and Commerce releasing their latest survey.

Of the group's around 20,000 member companies, only 23 per cent expect the economic outlook to improve. This compares with the start of the year when 26 per cent of those surveyed said they expected improved business conditions in the coming months.

However, the chambers' members are not expecting any dramatic slump in economic growth with continuing solid demand for German exports. (dpa)

Kuala Lumpur - Business leaders and government ministers called Monday for international action on soaring food prices at an economic forum in Malaysia's capital while governments were blamed for causing most of the hikes.

"It is imperative that issues such as water and food do not become impediments to Asian development," Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said in a video speech to delegates at the World Economic Forum on East Asia, held in Kuala Lumpur.

"I appeal for more agriculture development and the support [from governments] to see it through," he said.

Berlin - Annual inflation in the 15-member eurozone hit 3.7 per cent in May, with surging energy and food prices forcing the European Union statistics office Monday to revise up its previous estimate for last month.

The upward revision in the inflation data will add to expectations that the European Central Bank will deliver a 25-basis-points rate hike at its meeting next month.

In its preliminary estimate issued earlier this month, the statistics office said inflation in May came in at 3.6 per cent. Inflation stood at 3.3 per cent in April.

Berlin - German investor confidence recorded a bigger-than -forecast fall in June, a key indicator released Tuesday showed, as a surging euro, spiralling inflation and worries about higher interest rates hit sentiment in Europe's biggest economy.

Drawn up by the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research, the ZEW index slid to minus 52.4 points from minus 41.4 points in May.

Economists had forecast that the index would drop to minus 42.5 points in June as concerns grow about the economic risks posed by soaring inflation have mounted.

This comes against the backdrop of expectations that German economic will slip back a gear as the year unfolds, despite the country9s economy's strong start to the new year.

Hong Kong - The Hong Kong government said Tuesday it was considering cutting the duty on diesel, one week after lorry drivers staged a slowdown protest through the city centre.

But a government spokesman pointed out the duty on diesel in the former British colony accounts for less than 5 per cent of overall retail price, a low level by world standards.

The announcement of the review on diesel duty rates came one day before Hong Kong legislators debate a motion to call for lower duties on fuel to combat soaring fuel prices.

Last Tuesday, hundreds of lorry drivers marched to the government offices in the city of 6.9 million demanding a cut in fuel duty to offset soaring diesel prices.

Washington - US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Tuesday said the United States and China were making positive strides in their complex economic relationship despite past spats over currencies and trade barriers.

"The relationship is growing in a positive direction," Paulson said in opening a two-day meeting of US-Chinese representatives in Annapolis, Maryland. "By definition, the US-China economic relationship is complex, yet the complexity has not interfered with our ability to build a base of trust."

New York - US investment bank Morgan Stanley reported Wednesday that its net income in a "turbulent" second quarter of 2008 fell by more than one-half to 1.026 billion dollars, a figure slightly above analysts' projections.

The figure, compared with over 2.36 billion dollars in the previous-year period, came to 0.95 dollars per share, slightly higher than analysts' forecasts of 0.92 dollars for the third-largest US investment bank.

"Given the turbulent environment this quarter, we stayed close to shore and continued strengthening the Firm's capital and liquidity positions," commented John J. Mack, Chairman and CEO. according to a company statement on its website.

Beijing - The World Bank on Thursday raised its forecast for China's economic growth this year to 9.8 per cent, marginally higher than its previous forecast, citing slowing inflation and limited economic impact from the devastating Sichuan earthquake.

China's economy had "moderated in line with the global economy's slowdown" but real growth of exports and imports "remains robust," the bank said in a quarterly economic report that raised its previous forecast of 9.4 per cent for gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

Washington  - A key gauge of US economic growth increased slightly in May, the third straight monthly rise and a positive sign as the world's largest economy works to avoid a recession.

The US leading index climbed 0.1 per cent, but only four of the 10 economic indicators that form the index were up on the month, the private New York-based Conference Board said. Consumer confidence and building permits led the declines.

Brussels  - The European Union is to launch emergency aid measures for the EU citizens and industries hit hardest by soaring food and fuel prices, the head of the bloc's executive said Friday.

The EU is also planning to create a fund to support agriculture in developing countries, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said after a meeting in Brussels with EU heads of state and government.

Rising prices are "a global problem, and even Europe cannot solve it alone. Governments are free to act with emergency measures for the most vulnerable parts of society," he said.

At the summit, Barroso unveiled a raft of measures aimed at helping both poor households and the fishing industry.

Caracas - Venezuela's nationalization policy has now moved to the cement sector, with a government decree effective Thursday that requires cement plants six months to transfer a 60 per cent stake to the state.

The nationalization of three foreign-owned companies - Mexico's Cemex SAB, France's Lafarge SA and Switzerland's Holcim Ltd - as well as their affiliates was announced in April. They would become Venezuelan state companies.

"We are going to pay the investors who were here," said Chavez Thursday, implying that the companies would be compensated for their losses.

In April, when Chavez announced the nationalization, he said the country needs cement to help confront a housing shortage, to build house for the poor.

Hanoi  - Vietnam has told local rice exporters to boost exports, reversing its decision in March to stop signing new contracts and to cap rice exports this year at 3.5 million tons, officials said Friday.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told government ministries Thursday to encourage more rice exports and asked commercial banks to provide loans for exporters to buy rice from farmers, said Deputy Trade Minister Nguyen Thanh Bien.

"The increase in the amount of rice to be exported this year is based on high rice output and on domestic and international demand for rice," Bien said.

Paris  - The French economy is slowing down and will likely show no growth for the third quarter of this year, the government's statistical office INSEE said on Friday.

"France has been unaffected until now by the global (economic) slowdown, registering a robust 0.6 per cent rise in GDP in the first quarter," INSEE said.

"But economic surveys are signalling a turnaround in the expectations of entrepreneurs in all sectors of the economy.

Berlin  - The prospects grew Friday of the European Central Bank delivering a rate hike next month after new German figures showed soaring energy costs leading to renewed price pressures in Europe's biggest economy.

German factory gate prices surged by annual six per cent in May to record their biggest jump in almost two years, the nation's statistics office said. On a monthly basis, producer prices edged up by 1 per cent.

Helping to drive the increase was a strong increase in the energy and food sectors with the cost of energy racing ahead by 15 per cent over the year. Annual oil product prices soared by 25.9 per cent.

Berlin - Stagflation and interest rates fears are expected to have resulted in a raft of key surveys showing a fall in European economic sentiment, lead by a drop in German business confidence with figures also tipped to show another increase in the nation's inflation rate.

A rise in German inflation to a forecast 3.2 per cent in June is likely to increase the chances of the European Central Bank delivering its first rate hike in more than a year at its next meeting set down for July 3.

Washington -  The United States economy will be virtually stagnant through much of 2008, the International Monetary Fund predicted Friday, significantly raising its growth forecast of only three months ago that had suggested a recession was likely.

The IMF said growth over this year would be a little above 1 per cent, up from an April forecast of 0.5 per cent. For 2009, the international crisis lender expects US growth of 0.8 per cent, compared to 0.6 per cent in April.

Singapore  - Young employed adults below 30 are Singapore's fastest-growing group of debtors, a published report said on Sunday.

On average, they owe 55,000 Singapore dollars (41,000 US dollars) to about seven creditors, according to Credit Counselling Singapore (CCS).

The under-30s made up 13 per cent of all cases handled by the non-profit group last year, up from 9 per cent in 2006, said the findings in The Sunday Times. During the first three months of this year, the under-30s mired in debt climbed to 15 per cent.

Berlin  - German business confidence slumped more than expected in June, a key survey released Monday said, amid growing fears about the threat posed by rising inflation and slowing economic growth.

After unexpectedly edging up in May, Germany's closely watched Ifo business confidence index fell to 101.3 points this month from 103.5 points in May.

Economists had forecast that the monthly survey drawn up by the Munich-based Ifo economic institute would slip to 102.3 points. (dpa)

Vienna - The price for crude oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell by 0.88 dollars last Friday, OPEC announced Monday.

One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC-produced crude stood at 128.56 dollars a barrel on Friday, compared with 129.44 dollars on the previous day.

OPEC calculates an average basket price based on 13 important brands produced by cartel members. (dpa)

Hanoi - Vietnam's stock market had a rare good day Monday after preliminary figures released by the government showed inflation slowing and the trade deficit shrinking in June.

Vietnamese press reports Monday morning cited Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Cao Viet Sinh saying inflation would come in at 2.2 per cent for the month of June, down from 3.9 per cent in May. Sinh said the country's trade deficit had declined from 8.3 billion dollars in the first quarter to 6.4 billion dollars in the second.

Tokyo - Japan's trade surplus shrank 7.6 per cent in May to 365.6 billion yen (3.39 billion dollars) from a year before, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

Japan's exports grew 3.7 per cent to 6.81 trillion yen, and imports increased 4.4 per cent to 6.44 trillion yen, the ministry said in a preliminary report.

Exports to the United States dropped 9.5 per cent to 1.18 trillion yen, and imports declined 8.4 per cent to 699.7 billion.

With the European Union, Japan's exports dipped 1.1 per cent to 960.7 billion yen, and imports also decreased 8.1 per cent to 617.4 billion yen.

Japan's exports with the rest of Asia rose 8.1 per cent to 3.49 trillion yen, while imports slipped 3.8 per cent to 2.59 trillion yen.

Yangon - The Export-Import Bank of India has extended 84 million dollars in credits to two joint-venture projects for a factory and electrical transmission lines in Myanmar, state media reported Wednesday

The loans were inked Tuesday in Naypyitaw, Myanmar's capital, during a visit by an Indian business delegation led by Indian Minister of State for Commerce and Power Shri Jairam Remesh, said The New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece for the ruling military junta.

Amsterdam - Inflation in the Netherlands is expected to increase, Dutch central bank president Nout Wellink indicated during a debate with the Dutch parliament on Tuesday.

Referring to the Dutch economy of the 1970s, Wellink said all European governments should try to limit their deficits, resist wage increases and not allow companies to increase their prices as a result of the rise in prices of raw materials.

Inflation in the Netherlands is expected to rise this year and next year to more than 3 per cent. Wellink also indicated Dutch inflation might for the first time in decades be above the European average.

He also added the European Central bank would most likely succeed in reducing inflation to below 2 per cent. (dpa)

Warsaw/Berlin - Poland's national bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points Wednesday amid growing inflation fears and a strong economic performance.

The decision brought borrowing costs in Central Europe's biggest economy to 6 per cent with the move in line with analysts' forecasts.

It was also the Warsaw-based monetary authorities' eighth rate increase since April last year when the cost of money stood at 4.0 per cent.

However since then, surging oil prices, a tight labour market and spiralling wages have helped to fuel inflationary pressures in Poland consequently raising the prospects of further hikes in the coming months.

Kiev- Polish Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) is considering a buy-in to Ukraine's growing stocks and securities industry, a WSE official said Wednesday.

Poland's leading trading site for company shares, the WSE is conducting talks on the purchase of Ukraine's Indeks stock exchange, said Ludwik Sobolewski, WSE President.

Results of the talks will be made public by September, said Beata Jarosz, a WSE board member, speaking at a Kiev press conference.

Wellington  - Consumer confidence in New Zealand is at its lowest level since the recession of 1991, according to a survey reported Thursday.

The Westpac McDermott Miller consumer confidence index has fallen 15 points since March to 82, the third-lowest mark recorded in the survey's 20-year history.

Westpac Bank chief economist Brendan O'Donovan told the New Zealand Herald that consumers were "squealing" over the high cost of living, fuelled by rising food and petrol prices.

He said that consumer sentiment tended to reflect the state of the economy: "Right now we are sitting in a recession."

Rome  - Italy's biggest bank, UniCredit, announced Thursday it plans to slash its workforce by 9,000 people as part of a new three-year business plan.

Linking the job cuts to its 2007 purchase of Rome-based bank Capitalia, Unicredit said in a statement that staffing in its western Europe operations, including Italy, Germany and Austria, needed to be "right-sized."

UniCredit CEO Alessandro Profumo was expected to provide further details when presenting the bank's 2008-2010 business plan in Vienna, later Thursday.

UniCredit also said in the statement that it expects its revenue to rise 6.7 per cent a year through 2010, as the group expands in eastern Europe.

Stuttgart - Luxury German sports carmaker Porsche SE said Thursday it was shifting production of its Boxer model from Finland to Austria.

The Stuttgart-based group said it had chosen Austrian auto group Magna Steyr to build its Boxster-model from 2012.

As a result, Magna Steyr will replace Porsche's current partner Valmet Automotive after the Austrian company presented the most attractive offer, Porsche said.

Valmet has produced more than 200,000 units of the Boxster series since 1997. (dpa)

Vienna - The price of crude oil produced by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell by more than one dollar on Wednesday from the record set the day before, according to data released by OPEC on Thursday.

One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC-produced crude stood at 129.87 dollars, down 1.47 dollars from 131.34 dollars on Tuesday.

OPEC originally publicized its Tuesday basket price as 131.25 dollars, but later revised it upwards to 131.34 dollars.

OPEC calculates an average basket price based on 13 important brands produced by cartel members. (dpa)

Washington - The United States economy grew by an annualized 1 per cent in the first quarter of 2008, the Commerce Department said Thursday, revising upwards an earlier estimate and further easing concerns the world's largest economy may have entered a recession.

The government's final figure for seasonally-adjusted growth in the first three months of the year was up from 0.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2007. (dpa)

Hong Kong  - The number of US-dollar millionaires in Asia surged in 2007, with India having the fastest growing population of individuals holding at least 1 million US dollars in financial assets, a wealth report said Friday.

India added more millionaires to its ranks than any other country after about 25,000 people gained millionaire status last year, according to an annual wealth report produced by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini consultants.

The total number of people in India with assets of more than 1 million dollars has risen to 123,000, a year-on-year rise of 22.7 per cent.

Tokyo  - Japan's industrial output rose 2.9 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in May, compared to April, the government said Friday.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, however, downgraded its assessment of industrial production for the first time since December.

The May reading was in line with an average market projection but stronger than a 0.2-per-cent fall in April.

The index for the country's manufacturing and mining sector stood at 109.4 against 100 for the base year of 2005.

The figure for the manufacturing sector was expected to fall 0.9 per cent in June but to pick up again in July by 2.2 per cent. (dpa)

Tokyo  - Japan's core consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.5 per cent in May from a year before, recording the fastest increase in more than 15 years, the government said Friday.

The core CPI, which excludes fresh food prices, came to 101.6 against 100 for the base year of 2005, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said in a preliminary report.

The reading came against an average market forecast of a 1.4-per-cent rise.

Japan's overall CPI, including fresh food prices, stood at 101.7 in May. The index was up 1.3 per cent from a year before.

The ministry also reported the nation's monthly household spending for May, which fell a real 3.2 per cent from a year earlier to 288,128 yen (2,676 dollars).

London, June 27 : Prostitutes in America are offering free petrol to truck drivers following fuel price hike, which is keeping their customers away.

According to Nevada Brothel Owners Association, fuel price hike has sharply hit their revenues that have dropped by 45 pct since oil crisis began.

In the Nevada desert, where it is legal to run brothels, truck drivers make up a significant proportion of the men

Bangkok- Thailand's year-on-year inflation jumped 8.9 per cent in June, ramped up by rising fuel and food prices, the Commerce Ministry said Tuesday.

June's consumer price index rose 1.2 per cent compared with May's and was up 6.3 per cent for the first six months of 2008, Commerce Ministry Permanent Secretary Pailah Sudsawang told a press conference.

In June, the main inflationary component was food and beverages, which rose 11.4 per cent year-on-year, she said.

Thailand is a net importer of oil and one of Asia's few net exporters of food.

Rising oil prices automatically mean higher crop prices because most Thai farmers rely on petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides and fuel for tractors and transport. dpa

Sofia - A wave of price hikes likely to further fuel already rampant inflation hit Bulgaria from the start of July on Tuesday, shocking the poorest European Union nation.

Local media widely described the hikes as a "price shock," reporting 13 to 14 per cent increases in the cost of electricity and central heating.

That would really kick in with the arrival of the cold season, unlike the between 9 and 30 per cent price hike in public transport.

The inflation rate in Bulgaria reached a whopping 15 per cent year-on-year in May and 4.7 per cent since the start of 2008, threatening to shatter the envisaged annual target of 6.9 per cent.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's flagship airline Cathay Pacific Wednesday issued a profit warning to investors, saying its 2008 results would be "disappointing" because of rising fuel prices. 

The airline, which made a net profit of 909 million US dollars in 2007, said in a statement it was paying on average 60 per cent more for fuel in 2008 than it did in the first half of 2007 and the situation was worsening. 

"The most recent spot price for jet fuel is 93 per cent higher than the average price paid by Cathay Pacific in 2007," the statement said. "Investors are advised to exercise caution in dealing with shares of Cathay Pacific. 

Berlin - The German cabinet was meeting Wednesday to discuss the 2009 budget after weeks of wrangling between Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck and the spending ministries. 

Steinbrueck was to lay out plans to balance the federal budget by 2011, sketching out the medium-term financial programme to 2012. 

The new budget and the longer-term plans were testimony to the coalition cabinet's competence and ability to push through its programme, Steinbrueck told ZDF national public television. 

The 2009 budget foresees spending of 288.4 billion euros (456 billion dollars), some 5 billion euros up on the current year. 

Frankfurt - Faced with spiralling inflation, the European Central Bank (ECB) is set to deliver Thursday its first rate hike in more than year, most analysts agree. 

The ECB's 21-member rate-setting council is expected to defy growing political opposition to a tighter monetary policy in the 15- member eurozone by announcing that it had raised its benchmark refinancing rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 per cent. 

But while most analysts expect the Frankfurt-based ECB to announce a rate increase Thursday, they are divided whether it will be a one-off attempt to ward off inflationary pressure or set the stage for further increases. 

Stockholm - Sweden's central bank Thursday raised its key rate by one-quarter point to 4.5 per cent, citing inflationary pressures in the economy.

The bank said inflation had risen to the highest level since the mid-1990s, and further rate hikes would follow this year.

The Swedish bank's rate hike decision came while the European Central Bank governors were getting ready to meet in Frankfurt, with most analysts expecting the ECB also raising its key rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 per cent. (dpa)

London - US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned Thursday that soaring oil prices were likely to prolong the world economic slowdown while there was a "very strong possibility" that the US economy would be growing by the end of the year.

Speaking at a news conference in London, where he had talks with Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, Paulson said the turmoil in the global financial markets and the "correction" in the US housing market would continue for some time.

"I think that the oil prices are a strong head wind and at this level ... they have got a high risk that they are going to prolong the slowdown," said Paulson.

Madrid - The World Petroleum Council on Thursday stressed the importance of ethical values as one of the main challenges facing the energy business.

Decision-making in the oil industry needed to be linked with "ethical values, legal compliance and respect for people, communities and the environment," World Petroleum Council president Randall Gossen said in Madrid.

Gossen was speaking at the close of the World Petroleum Congress, described as the Olympics of the oil industry, which brought thousands of experts from some 60 countries, including more than 35 ministers, to the Spanish capital this week.

Manila - The Philippines' inflation rate jumped to a 14-year high of 11.4 per cent in June from a year ago as food and fuel prices soared, the government said Friday. 

The June index was higher than 9.5 per cent in May and 2.3 per cent in the same month last year, the National Statistics Office (NSO) said. 

It is the highest inflation rate since May 1994, when the index was at 11.5 per cent. 

The increase to double-digit rates was brought about by "soaring prices of rice nationwide along with the upward adjustments of other food items," the NSO said. 

"Tuition fee hikes and the series of upward adjustments in petroleum products also contributed to the uptrend," it added. 

Berlin  - German factory orders fell again in May, the Ministry of Economics and Technology said Friday, dragged down by a sharp drop in domestic demand.

After slumping by 1.7 per cent in April, German industrial orders slipped by a price-and-seasonally adjusted 0.9 per cent in May, adding to expectations that Europe's biggest economy could slow as the year unfolds.

Economists had predicted the data, which is considered to be a key if volatile economic indicator, to clock up a modest 0.6 per cent gain in May.

"Industry orders in the last six months have significantly fallen from what was a high base," the economics ministry said releasing the latest data.

Amman - Arab stock markets this week came under pressure from speculators and renewed political tension over Iran's nuclear file, as investors focused on half-year results which were due to start coming out next week, financial analysts said Friday.

"Regional markets were cautious this week with speculation and geopolitical aspects emerging as the major driving force," an Amman- based portfolio manager told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

New York, July 5 : Elderly folk across the United States are experiencing a shortage of gas supply due to soaring gasoline prices.

So grave is the crisis that agencies around the country that provide services to the elderly, say they are having to cut back on programs like Meals on Wheels, transportation assistance and home care, especially in rural areas that depend on volunteers who provide their own gas.

In a recent survey by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, more than half said they had already cut back on programs because of gas costs, and 90 percent said they expected to make cuts in the 2009 fiscal year.

Toyako  -Leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations will agree during their summit in Hokkaido to stockpile grains to better cope with future food crises, sources said.

The proposal would require each G8 nation to store specific amounts of grains and release them into the market in a coordinated effort to stabilize grain prices when necessary.

The plan will be included in a special document on the global food crisis to be adopted during the G8 summit at Lake Toyako scheduled to start Monday, diplomatic sources said.

The creation of the food stockpile system was agreed upon at a meeting of top officials of G8 nations preparing for the summit meeting.

Bangkok - Laos, a land-locked nation with no known petroleum resources, faces a serious threat from rising oil prices this year, the country's president warned Monday.

"Rising oil prices on the world market will have a serious impact here," said Lao President Choummali Saignason in his opening remarks to the mid-year session of the National Assembly, according to Lao radio reports.

Laos, one of Asia's poorest economies, is rich in water resources but has no known petroleum reserves. Oil and fuel face high transport costs as they must be imported by land through Thailand or Vietnam, Laos' neighbours to the south and east.

Tokyo - Japan's foreign reserves exceeded 1 trillion dollars in June on rises in the appraisal value of the nation's euro-denominated assets and gold holdings, the Finance Ministry said Monday.

The nation's foreign reserves increased 4.57 billion dollars to 1 trillion dollars from May, marking the fourth highest total in record.

The total hit a record high at 1.02 trillion at the end of March.

Japan held 859.25 billion dollars in foreign securities as of June 30, up from 853.51 billion dollars in May.

Foreign currency deposits came to 114.21 billion dollars.

Karachi - Pakistan's troubled rupee slumped to a new record low on Monday against the US dollar over continued political and economic uncertainties, traders said.

The rupee plunged to 71.10 against the dollar to trade at 70.50/71 in the open market during the afternoon trade.

The fresh decline was lower even from Thursday's rate which breached 70 for the first time.

In the inter-bank market, too, the rupee was trading at its lowest at 70.60/70.70 against the dollar.

Rising import pressure due to soaring international oil prices amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves at the central State Bank of Pakistan is creating enormous pressure on the rupee.

Vienna- The price for crude oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell slightly on Friday but stayed above 140 dollars a barrel, a statement by OPEC said Monday.

One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC-produced crude stood at 140.14 dollars Friday, 0.59 dollars lower compared with 140.73 dollars on the previous day.

OPEC calculates an average basket price based on 13 important brands produced by cartel members. (dpa)

Toyako, Japan - Group of Eight (G8) leaders turned to the environment and to surging oil and food prices Tuesday amid concerns that high commodity prices may further slowdown the global economy.

The second day of the summit in Toyako, in northern Japan, saw heads of state and governments of the world's seven richest economies and Russia hold a closed-doors working session in the exclusive Hotel Windsor.

US President George W Bush was seated between the meeting's host, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Leaked drafts of the summit's final conclusion show that while there is growing alarm over spiralling food and oil prices, there is little the G8 can do to solve the emergency.

Washington - The US Federal Reserve may extend its unprecedented lending to investment banks into next year in the face of an ongoing credit crisis, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday as government-chartered mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were scrambling to raise new capital.

Bernanke said the central bank's emergency lending provisions, set up in March at the height of the credit crisis for a six-month period, could be carried into 2009 if the financial sector's "unusual and exigent circumstances continue to prevail."

Tokyo - Japan's core machinery orders rose 10.4 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in May to 1.11 trillion yen (10.41 billion dollars) from the previous month, the Cabinet Office said Wednesday.

The figures came out better than the average market expectations of a 0.8-per-cent monthly rise and a 3.5-per-cent fall on year. The key orders was up 5.1 per cent from a year earlier.

May core orders grew on brisk demand from electric machinery makers, steelmakers and the transport sector for such items as semiconductor manufacturing equipment, boilers and railroad vehicles, the government said.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's reputation as a business-savvy city was bolstered Wednesday by a survey which found that more than one third of adults invest in stocks or shares.

The survey by the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, which runs the former British colony's stock exchange, found 35.7 per cent of the city's adult population - or
2.02 million people - hold stocks or shares.

The average holding in stocks and shares is around 100,000 Hong Kong dollars (12,800 US dollars) and the typical investor is a 42-year-old with a monthly income of around 2,900 US dollars, the survey of more than 2,200 people found.

Amsterdam  - Dutch Transportation Minister Camiel Eurlings on Wednesday was set to formally launch a public company founded exclusively to fight increasing traffic jams in and around the city of Rotterdam and particularly the harbour.

The minister was due to sign a special agreement about the new company together with Rotterdam municipality alderwoman Jeannette Baljeu and Hans Smits, CEO of the Rotterdam Harbour.

The public company, an initiative of CEO Smits, is the first public company in the Netherlands set up exclusively to fight traffic jam problems in a metropolitan area.

Berlin - German imports rose strongly in May, reflecting in part higher prices paid for fossil fuels, while exports from the world's top exporter remained high, according to figures released Wednesday by the state statistics office in Wiesbaden.

Imports rose 8.2 per cent on the year to 66.5 billion euros (104 billion dollars), while exports were up 2.5 per cent at 80.8 billion euros.

By comparison with the previous month, and on a seasonally adjusted basis, imports rose 0.7 per cent, while exports declined 3.2 per cent.

Most of the two-way trade was with the rest of the European Union. EU members took 52.5 billion euros worth of German exports and exported goods worth 43.3 billion euros to Germany.

Washington, July 9: China's economy will overtake that of the United States by 2035 and be twice its size by 2050, a study released Tuesday by a US research organization concluded.

News agencies quoted a report by economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as saying that China''s rapid growth is driven by domestic demand more than exports, which will be sustainable over the coming decades.

Singapore - Singapore's economy grew at a slower-than- expected pace in the second quarter as manufacturers cut production amid a decline in demand, Trade Ministry data said Thursday. 

Gross domestic product rose an estimated 1.9 per cent on a year- on-year basis in the three months ending in June, after expanding by a revised 6.9 per cent in the first three months of 2008. 

"The slowdown chiefly reflected a sharp contraction in biomedical manufacturing output," the ministry said. 

The economy shank an annualized 6.6 per cent during the three months. 

The manufacturing sector contracted 5.6 per cent during the quarter from a year earlier, with electronics exports declining for 17 months. 

Tokyo - Japan's current account surplus in May fell 5.9 per cent to 2 trillion yen (18.64 billion dollars) from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.

The nation's goods and services trade surplus rose 20.8 per cent to 506.6 billion yen, the ministry said in a preliminary report.

In goods trade, Japan's surplus grew 6.3 per cent to 529.4 billion as growth in exports outpaced rise in imports.

Exports rose 4.2 per cent to 6.5 trillion yen, and imports were also up 4 per cent to 5.98 trillion yen.

Services trade recorded a deficit of 22.8 billion yen in May, down 71 per cent from a year earlier.

The income account surplus fell 12.6 per cent to 1.57 trillion yen.

Sydney - Unemployment in Australia fell to 4.2 per cent in June, government figures released Thursday showed.

The creation of 29,800 jobs, 24,000 of them full time, followed a dip the previous month, the Bureau of Statistics said. In May, when the unemployment rate was 4.3 per cent, 19,700 jobs were lost, the first fall in 19 months.

The surprisingly buoyant job figures, given high interest rates and high fuel prices, stirred worries that the central bank might consider raising interest rates for a 13th consecutive time. (dpa)

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's flagship airline Cathay Pacific Friday increased fares for first and business-class passengers by up to 15 per cent to counter soaring oil price rises.

The airline, which issued a profit warning earlier this month over the impact of rising fuel prices, is expected to impose its biggest rises on routes to Europe, Canada and Australia.

The fare rises ranging from 3 to 15 per cent will come into effect from Friday, the airline said in a statement. There will be no fare increases for economy class passengers.

Announcing the fare rises, Cathay Pacific chief executive Tony Tyler said: "We regret having to charge passengers more, but the increase in our fuel bill is too great for us to absorb.

Taipei- Taiwan's stocks ended 2.39 per cent higher as investors hunted for bargains following Wall Street's overnight gains, dealers said.

The Weighted Price index, which opened higher amid a bullish sentiment, continued its upward trend to close at 7,244.76 points, up 2.39 per cent from the previous day's trade, with turnover relatively brisk at 109.12 billion Taiwan dollars (3.59 billion US).

All eight major sectors rose with paper and construction sub-indices each advancing 4 per cent to become the day's biggest winners, followed by food's 3.5 per cent, textiles' 3 per cent and electronics' 2.8 per cent.

Frankfurt - Oil prices surged to a record high Friday amid supply worries and an outbreak of international tensions surrounding Iran, a key oil producer.

With the US dollar also coming under fresh pressure, oil prices climbed to an all-time high of 145.98 dollars a barrel in European trading as shares in Europe also began to edge down.

The oil price's renewed climb came against the backdrop of concerns about crude oil supplies and on-going tensions over Iran with a fresh round of friction emerging between Tehran and Israel.

Concerns have been growing about the threat posed to global supplies by a new round of attacks on pipelines by Nigerian militants and a possible strike by Brazilian oil workers.

Singapore - The major ASEAN economies are likely to deliver higher-than-expected growth this year, but the outlook for 2009 looks challenging, economists said in a published report on Saturday.

Morgan Stanley raised its 2008 growth forecast for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to 5.6 per cent from an earlier estimate of 5.5 per cent.

The investment bank kept intact its recently upgraded GDP growth projections for Malaysia at 5.7 per cent and Thailand at 5.6 per cent.

It jacked up the forecast for Indonesia by half a point to 6 per cent and cut Singapore's from 5.1 per cent to 4.3 per cent, said the breakdown in The Business Times.

Washington  - The US government moved Sunday to aid the troubled lenders that shore up the nation's struggling home mortgage market, after crisis talks Sunday in Washington.

The two firms, nicknamed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, financed or bought about half of all mortgages, which are estimated at 12 trillion dollars in the United States.

Washington, July 14: A researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) believes that higher fuel prices may lead to a reduction in the deaths from road accidents.

Dr. Michael Morrisey, director of UAB''s Lister Hill Center for Health Policy, says that an analysis of yearly vehicle deaths compared to gas prices suggests that fatality rates drop significantly as people slow down and drive less.

In the study report, he writes that traffic deaths could drop by more than 1,000 per month nationwide if gas remains at four dollars a gallon or higher for a year or more.

Wellington - New Zealand's annual inflation rate reached 4 per cent in the 12 months ending June 30, sharply up from 3.4 per cent in March, according to official figures on Tuesday.

Soaring petrol and food prices were responsible for a 1.6-per-cent rise in the Consumers' Price Index (CPI) in the June 2008 quarter, the biggest increase in 18 years, Statistics New Zealand reported.

The cost of petrol rose nearly 26 per cent in the June year and food prices were up 8.2 per cent, the highest annual increase since 1990.

The statisticians said the last time the annual CPI topped 4 per cent was in 1995.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided on Tuesday to keep its key short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.5 per cent.

The central bank's policy board agreed unanimously to maintain the base rate at the end of a two-day meeting due to concerns over rising fuel prices.

As inflation concerns mount, BOJ revised its estimate for the nation's economic growth for fiscal 2008 to 1.2 per cent, from an earlier projection of 1.5 per cent.

The board also revised its estimate for growth in the fiscal 2008 consumer price index to 1.8 per cent from 1.1 per cent. (dpa)

Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday announced a fresh 4-billion-peso (88.88-million-dollar) subsidy programme to help poor Filipinos cope with higher prices.

Arroyo said 1 billion pesos would help poor consumers pay their electricity bills while another 1 billion pesos would be used to fund microfinancing projects for wives of public transport workers.

The rest of the money would finance the upgrade of government hospitals to accommodate more indigent patients, a programme for senior citizens and the rehabilitation of typhoon-devastated areas, she said.

"We will continue to provide funds to help sectors who are severely affected by the rising oil prices," Arroyo said at a cabinet meeting where she ordered the allocation of the funds.

Manila - Remittances from overseas Filipinos rose 14.74 per cent in the first five months of the year as more workers found employment abroad, the government said Tuesday. 

The Central Bank said remittances reached 6.79 billion dollars from January to May, higher than the 5.91 billion dollars seen in the same period last year. 

For the month of May alone, remittances grew 15.58 per cent to 1.42 billion dollars. 

"Behind the continued expansion in remittances was the steady growth in the number of deployed Filipino workers," the bank said in a statement. "This reflected the distinct preference for the skills, quality and competence of Filipino workers." 

Berlin - German investor confidence recorded a bigger-than -forecast fall in July, a key indicator released Tuesday showed, as a surging euro, spiralling inflation and worries about higher interest rates hit sentiment in Europe's biggest economy. 

Drawn up by the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research, the ZEW index dropped 11.5 points to minus 63.9 points. 

Economists had forecast that the index would drop from minus 52.4 points in June to minus 55 points this month as concerns have grown about the risks facing the global economy including the fallout from the global financial markets and credit crisis. 

Buenos Aires - An estimated 300,000 people gathered Tuesday in Buenos Aires in opposing rallies over the ongoing political confrontation over higher export tariffs for certain crops, local media reported.

The show of force - divided between a large pro-farmers' rally and a smaller pro-government event - came as the latest episode in a power struggle between conservative farmers' unions and the left-wing government over significant increases in export tariffs on soybeans and sunflower seeds. The row has already stretched for four months.

The Argentine Senate was expected to vote Wednesday on legislation to hike the tariffs, which was already passed by the lower House in the Argentine Congress.

Bangkok  - Thailand's central bank on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time in two years, hiking it 0.25 per cent to 3.5 per cent in an effort to curb inflation.

Duangmanee Vongpradhip, assistant governor of the Bank of Thailand's monetary policy division, said the hike to the bank's one-day bond repurchase rate was deemed necessary to keep inflation from getting out of control.

Berlin - European inflation jumped to a record 4 per cent in June, the European Statistics Office said Wednesday, amid growing concerns about the threat posed to the global economy by surging consumer prices.

The data confirms the preliminary estimate for annual inflation in the 15-member eurozone, which the statistics office Eurostat released at the end of last month.

Since then, the European Central Bank has delivered its first rate hike in more than a year by raising borrowings costs by 25 basis points to 4.25 per cent in a bid to ward off renewed inflationary pressures.

Vienna - The price for crude oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell on Tuesday, according to OPEC data, as the latest outlook for the United States indicated a worsening of the economic situation.

One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC-produced crude stood at 138 dollars Tuesday, down 1.81 dollars compared with 139.81 dollars on the previous day, OPEC said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke, the head of the US Federal Reserve, said factors such as rising energy prices and a further contraction of housing markets represented "significant downside risks to the outlook for growth."

Washington  - Higher US petrol prices drove US inflation up to a seasonally adjusted 1.1 per cent in June, the largest monthly increase since 2005, government statistics showed Wednesday.

The Consumer Price Index increased from 0.6 per cent the previous month, the US Labour Department said.

Soaring energy prices made up two-thirds of the increase, with the energy index rising 6.6 per cent from a 4.4 per cent increase in May. Food prices rose 0.8 per cent, while core prices, which exclude food and energy, were up 0.3 per cent.

Beijing - China on Thursday reported another slight fall in monthly inflation to 7.1 per cent year-on-year in June, as it recorded estimated economic growth of 10.4 per cent in the first half of the year.

The rise of 7.1 per cent in June in the consumer price index (CPI) was down from 7.7 per cent in May and from a 12-year high of 8.7 per cent in February, and brought half-yearly inflation down to 7.9 per cent, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Estimated gross domestic product (GDP) hit 13.06 trillion yuan (1.9 trillion dollars) from January to June, up 10.4 per cent year-on-year, compared with 8.6 per cent in the first half of 2007, the bureau said.

Hong Kong  - Hong Kong shares rebounded Thursday following a resurgence in confidence on Wall Street, coupled with falling oil prices, with the benchmark Hang Seng index rising 2.41 per cent to close at 21,734.72, up 511.22 points on the day.

Turnover totalled 63.46 billion Hong Kong dollars (8.13 billion US dollars).

Banks, airlines and oil refiners showed the strongest recovery. HSBC bank climbed 3.7 per cent to 117 Hong Kong dollars, while China Construction Bank rose 3.2 per cent to 6.44 Hong Kong dollars after US bank Wells Fargo reported earnings above analysts' forecasts.

Washington - Rising jet fuel costs have taken a toll on another US carrier, with Continental Airlines Inc Thursday posting second-quarter losses of three million dollars.

Continental is the fifth-largest carrier in the world. "The combination of record high fuel prices, weakening economic conditions and a weak dollar has resulted in the worst financial environment for US network carriers since the 9/11 terrorist attacks," a company statement said.

The airline will cut 3,000 jobs and retire 67 least-fuel efficient aircraft from its fleet by the end of 2009.

Kiev  - The World Bank on Friday revised upwards Ukraine's predicted inflation rate for 2008 to 21.5 per cent, the Interfax news agency reported.

The bank had been predicting 17 per cent inflation, but galloping food and energy prices made that expectation unrealistic, said Ruslan Piontovsky, a bank spokesman.

The bank also suggested overall Ukrainian GDP growth will be at a relatively strong 6 per cent on the strength of demand for key Ukrainian export products such as steel, foodstuffs, and chemicals.

But growth would fall to between 4 and 5 per cent during 2009 and 2010, Pointkovsky said.

Brussels - The European Union is not prepared to make any more concessions on agriculture at next week's key round of global trade talks in Geneva, the French presidency of the bloc said Friday.

"The EU has exhausted its room for manoeuvre in agriculture and cannot go any further. So we will not be making any further concessions," said Anne-Marie Idrac, a French government minister in charge of foreign trade.

Amman  - Arab stocks lost further ground this week as investors were cautious over the persistent Iranian nuclear standoff and the half-year results of listed firms, financial analysts said Friday.

However, they expected regional bourses to recover in the coming couple of weeks when semi-annual results are expected to be out.

"We believe political developments and uncertainty as to the second quarter results still put downward pressure on stock prices," an Amman-based portfolio manager told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Singapore - South-East Asian foreign ministers plan to tackle the devastating hardships triggered by spiraling food and oil prices which threaten to derail efforts to create a European Union- style economic community.

The creation of an Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Food Summit has been proposed for the agenda when ministers of the group's 10 member countries start meeting late Sunday in Singapore.

The ministers are set to discuss "the growing challenge posed by rising oil and food prices, which pose a serious challenge to our peoples' welfare as well as our countries' continued economic development," said a draft joint communique.

Hanoi  - Vietnam raised retail gasoline prices by 31 per cent Monday to reduce state fuel subsidies and bring local prices in line with international levels, local media said.

The Ministry of Finance announced the decision at a press conference Monday morning. Fuel trading companies will be allowed to raise the price of A92-grade gasoline from 14,500 dong (0.86 dollars) to 19,000 dong (1.13 dollars) per liter, reported the news website dantri. com. vn.

Manila - More Filipinos are going hungry as food prices soar in the Philippines, a nationwide survey showed on Monday. 

According to the June 27-30 survey, the country's hunger index rose to 16.3 per cent in the past three months to June from 15.7 per cent in March. 

The index translates to an estimated 2.9 million families, or more than 14 million people, who experienced "hunger due to lack of anything to eat" at least once since April. 

The Social Weather Stations (SWS), which conducted the poll, said 760,000 families of those reporting hunger experienced it "often" or "always," up from 570,000 families in March. 

London, July 21: A British chemical company has said that it has found a way to make fuel from household waste, and cars run on such fuel could be on the streets within two years.

According to a report in the Times, INEOS, the world’s third largest chemical company, said it aimed to produce commercial quantities of bioethanol fuel from biodegradable municipal waste by 2011.

The company has said that it had patented a method of producing fuel from municipal solid waste, agricultural waste and organic commercial waste.

The company claims that it can produce about 400 litres (90 gallons) of ethanol from one tonne of dry waste.

Prague  - The quickly firming Czech koruna broke a new set of records Monday, appreciating by nearly 19 per cent against the euro and 30 per cent against the dollar in the past year.

The koruna, which first broke the psychological threshold of 23 koruny per euro on Friday, was trading for 22.92 koruny per euro and 14.44 koruny per dollar on Monday, according to Next Finance consultancy.

Analysts say the fast-paced appreciation is driven by speculation. "It is a bubble. The koruna is unreasonably strong," said Next Finance chief economist Vladimir Pikora.

Washington  - A key gauge of US economic growth fell 0.1 per cent in June, its second straight monthly decline, according to an independent survey released Monday.

The New York-based Conference Board also revised its May figure, saying that leading economic indicators fell 0.2 per cent, after earlier reporting a 0.1-per-cent rise.

The board, which analyses 10 different measures of US economic performance, said the decline in its June index was led by drops in stock prices, unemployment claims and real money supply. (dpa)

Frankfurt - The Italian-owned bank HypoVereinsbank said Monday it had taken over a stake of about 10 per cent in German erotic company, Beate Uhse AG.

The Munich-based offshoot of Unicredit, HypoVereinsbank acquired the 9.84 per cent holding from Reuben Rotermund, a grandson of Beate Uhse, the company's founder,

However, the Rotermund institute, which is based in Liechtensein, still retains a 7.43 per cent stake in the group.

Ulrich Rotermund, Beate Uhse's son and his tax adviser Richard Orthmann have played a key role in the company's business operations since it made its stock market debut in 1999. (dpa)

Manila - Economic growth in East Asia will slow down in 2008 and 2009, weighed down by higher-than-expected inflation and a protracted slowdown in the United States, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Tuesday.

In the July issue of its Asia Economic Monitor report, the Manila-based ADB said East Asia's economic growth will moderate to 7.6 per cent in 2008, from 9 per cent in 2007.

The same growth rate is forecast for 2009.

The forecast covers China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and the members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares surged on the back of falling oil
prices Wednesday with the benchmark Hang Seng index climbing above
23,000 points for the first time in five weeks to end 2.69 per cent up
at 23,134.5.

Confidence was also buoyed by better than expected results from the United States banking sector.

Shares worth some 75.76 billion Hong Kong dollars (9.71 billion dollars) were traded.

Cathay Pacific Airways was the biggest gainer among Hang Seng
constituent stocks, rising 6.25 per cent to end at 15.64 Hong Kong
dollars. Analysts said lower oil prices would ease pressure on the
airline's operating costs.

Banking stocks showed renewed vigour with the Bank of East Asia

New Delhi, July 23 : China’s economic growth is likely to be 9.9 per cent this year and 9.7 per cent in 2009 due to a global economic slowdown, volatile financial markets and a sharp rise in food and energy prices, according to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report.

According to the China Daily, the worse-than-expected US economy has fuelled global worries that the global economic slowdown may continue following revelations that government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in serious trouble. This will have an impact on the Chinese economy.

Washington - The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed major legislation aimed at limiting the economic fallout from the US housing crisis and providing relief to struggling homeowners.

The long-awaited bill expands a programme that helps struggling homeowners refinance into government-insured mortgages - effectively guaranteeing up to 300-billion-dollars worth of loans - and approved a government contingency plan in the event of the collapse of lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Berlin - German business confidence slumped in July, a key survey to be released Thursday is forecast to show, as a surging euro, spiralling inflation and worries about higher interest rates hit sentiment in Europe's biggest economy.

After falling to 101.3 points in June, Germany's closely watched Ifo business confidence index slipped to 100 this month, analysts' predict.

Based on a survey of 7,000 German executives, the July Ifo report could set the stage for the release this week of a batch of major economic sentiment surveys, which are likely to point to a bleaker outlook taking shape across Europe.

A report released Tuesday showed consumer confidence in Italy dropping to about a 15-year low.

Washington - US President George W Bush summed up the problems in the US economy by telling a private gathering that "Wall Street got drunk" and is now suffering a "hangover."

"Wall Street got drunk - that's one reason I told you turn the cameras off - it got drunk and now it's got a hangover," Bush said at the fundraiser in Houston. "The question is how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments."

Tokyo - Japan's trade surplus shrank 42.1 per cent in the first six months of fiscal 2008 to 3 trillion yen (27.51 billion dollars) from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.

The surplus marked the largest fall since the first half of 2001.

Due to rising oil prices, imports grew faster than exports, the ministry said.

Exports grew 3.9 per cent to 41.93 trillion yen on expansion in automobile shipments to Russia and the Middle East, and imports soared 10.5 per cent to a record 38.97 trillion yen, buoyed by double-digit gains in crude oil, liquefied natural gas and coal imports.

Japan's trade surplus with the United States shrank 17.2 per cent to 3.4 trillion yen.

London - Britain's leading aid charity Oxfam has warned that 13 million people in East Africa are at risk of hunger and destitution as food prices spiral out of control.

A situation already marked by droughts, war and poverty was made worse by rising food prices which had increased by 350 per cent in some regions between 2007 and 2008, Oxfam said in a report issued in London Thursday.

Oxfam joined calls on donors from other international aid groups to increase aid levels to Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Its call followed a warning from the UN World Food Programme which said that more than 14 million people in the Horn of Africa needed food aid because of drought and rising food and fuel prices.

Stuttgart, Germany  - German carmaker Daimler AG cut its 2008 earnings forecast Thursday in the face of a slowing world economy, a surging euro and increasing raw material costs.

The announcement by the manufacturer of luxury Mercedes Benz cars that it had revised down its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to more than 7 billion euros (11 billion dollars) sent the group's shares sharply down.

The Stuttgart-based carmaker had previously said that it expected EBIT from the group's ongoing operations to top the 7.7 billion euros it posted in 2007.

Daimler's shares dropped by about 8.0 per cent to 39.30 euros following the announcement.

Tokyo - Japan's core consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.9 per cent in June from a year before, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said Friday.

The core nationwide CPI, excluding fresh food prices, came to 102 against 100 for the base year of 2005, the ministry said. The index was up 0.4 per cent from May.

The figure was in line with the average market expectation of a 1.9-per-cent rise.

The overall CPI, including fresh food prices, stood at 102.2, up 2 per cent from a year earlier. (dpa)

Seoul - South Korea's economy grew 0.8 per cent from the first quarter to the second quarter as robust exports made up for a drop in consumer spending, the central bank said Friday.

The gross domestic product saw a 4.8-per-cent increase from 2007's second quarter, down from the 5.8-per-cent jump between 2007's and 2008's first quarters, the Bank of Korea said.

Exports of goods, which account for about 40 per cent of South Korea's GDP, rose 3.7 per cent in the second quarter from the quarter before after falling 1.3 per cent in the first quarter.

London - Economic growth in Britain slowed considerably to 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of this year, as the housing market and consumer spending were affected by the credit crunch.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the growth figure is the lowest in terms of quarter-on-quarter growth for three years.

It compares with 1.6-per cent growth in the comparable quarter of last year, and 2.3-per cent growth in the first quarter of 2008. (dpa)

Munich  - The market fallout unleashed by the US mortgage crisis continued to take its toll on the European financial sector with the giant German insurer Munich Re forced Friday to slash its 2008 earnings forecast.

The world's second biggest reinsurer expects earnings this year to come in at "well above" 2.0 billion euros (3.14 billion dollars) compared to a previous estimate of between 3.0 and 3.4 billion euros.

The projection sent Munich Re shares down by more than 10 per cent to about 104 euros.

"The main reason for this is the turmoil on the capital markets, which has led to an appreciable reduction in the group's investment result in the first half of 2008," the Munich-based company said announcing the results.

Frankfurt  - Despite high fuels costs and growing economic uncertainty, luxury German carmaker Audi said Friday it expects to report an improved business performance this year.

Audi, which is an offshoot of Europe's biggest auto manufacturer Volkswagen AG, said it expects sales to reach one million this year compared to 964,151 in 2007.

Despite surging raw materials, a weak euro and reluctant car buyers, Audi said its key operations all improved during the first half.

Audi said its first-half net profit rose by 37 per cent to 930 million euros. (dpa)

Taipei- The number of foreigners visiting Taiwan rose 5.6 per cent to 1.9 million from January to June, amid Taiwan's efforts to find ways to lure more foreign tourists, the government said Friday.

The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said that of the 1.9 million foreigners, 44.7 per cent were tourists, 24.5 per cent were business visitors and 30.8 per cent were foreigners entering Taiwan for other purposes.

Hong Kong - Launching a minimum wage or increasing regulatory policies could undermine Hong Kong's economic growth, the head of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce told a newspaper in a report published Monday.

But Hong Kong is unlikely to face an economic downturn on the same scale as that seen during the Asian financial crisis 10 years ago, the Standard newspaper said, quoting Andrew Brandler.

"The government has to be careful when formulating policies," Brandler said. "Increasing regulations may bring unforeseen and undesired consequences as they may increase costs, especially under such a fragile economy as we have now."

Nuremberg, Germany - Fears of a looming recession have further worried Germans, with the monthly GfK index of consumer sentiment dipping Monday to its lowest level since June 2003.

Nuremberg-based GfK, which surveys panels of consumers, forecast an August consumer climate at 2.1 on its own index scale, a marked fall from the July level of 3.6, as households took stock of gloomy financial news and rising fuel prices.

Many householders who were cheered by pay hikes earlier in the year reported fresh worries that inflation would claw back their gains. This drove GfK's separate index of income expectations down to minus 20, the lowest level since August 2004.

But a further index, reflecting interest in buying things, was only slightly down.

Tokyo - Japan's unemployment rate stood at 4.1 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in June, up 0.1 point from the previous month, the government said Tuesday.

Some 2.65 million people were jobless in the reporting month, up 240,000 from a year before, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said in a preliminary report.

There were 91 jobs available for every 100 job seekers in June.

New Delhi, July 29 : Reacting to the increase in the repo rate and cash reserve ratio, CII stated that these are expected policy responses to inflation, though it may have been possible to await the lagged effects of the last round of monetary actions in June 2008 before taking these further steps.

While there could be a concern on the impact of continuing monetary tightening on investment and growth, the RBI has made it clear that at the present juncture controlling inflation is its priority, CII said in a release issued today.

Washington - Consumer confidence inched higher in the United States in July, recovering slightly from a 16-year-low a month earlier, according to a private survey Tuesday.

The New York-based Conference Board said its index of consumer's expectations climbed to 51.9 from 51 in June, as the US economy struggles to come out of a sharp slowdown stretching back to the last quarter of 2007.

Tokyo - Japan's industrial production fell for the first time in two months as the auto industry had weak output, the government said Wednesday.

The June industrial output fell 2 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms from a 2.8-per-cent rise in May, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.

The index, which was weaker than the average market expectation of a 1.7-per-cent fall, came to 107.1 against 100 for the base year of 2005.

The government downgraded its assessment that the industrial output remains at "weak levels."

For the three months through June 30, the industrial output fell 0.7 per cent from the previous three months. (dpa)

Manila - A majority of Filipinos believed the Philippine economy worsened over the past three years despite government data of record growth in 2007, a survey showed Wednesday.

"Despite claims of economic growth by the national administration, 86 per cent say the national economy has worsened in the last three years," according to survey firm Pulse Asia Inc.

Pulse Asia said its nationwide survey on July 1-14 also showed that 81 per cent of 1,200 respondents said they personally felt the worsening of the economy.

New Delhi, July 30 : The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is disappointed over the inability of Trade Ministers to bridge their differences at the Doha WTO negotiations in Geneva.

In a statement, R Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, CII WTO and Trade Agreements Committee and Executive Director, Tata Sons Limited, said: "It is disheartening to know that the talks collapsed over the issue of a reasonable trigger point needed to safeguard the livelihood concerns of millions of subsistence farmers in developing countries.