London  - US President Barack Obama arrived in London Tuesday for the Group of 20 (G20) summit of the world's big economic powers at the start of his first major foray onto the global stage.

After he and his wife, Michelle, touched down at London's Stansted Airport they travelled by helicopter to the US ambassador's elegant residence in Regent's Park in central London.

Paris  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to walk out of this week's summit of G20 nations in London if it does not look to be achieving concrete results, the daily Le Figaro reported on Tuesday.

"If there is no progress in London, there will be an empty chair. I will get up and leave," Sarkozy said in an aside during a recent meeting of his cabinet.

The newly appointed deputy head of Sarkozy's office, Xavier Musca, on Monday underlined France's insistence that irreversible decisions be taken at the summit.

ong Kong - Hong Kong's economy is expected to shrink by 2 per cent this year, compared with a 2.5-per-cent growth in 2008, the Asian Development Bank said Tuesday.

But the bank said the contraction will only be temporary with growth forecast to return in 2010, when it projects the economy to expand by 3 per cent.

The bank's acting chief economist, Lee Jong-wha, said measures taken by the territory's government including tax cuts and moves to boost infrastructure spending to combat the current downturn are pointing the economy in the right direction.

Nicosia, Mar 31: The National Competitiveness Report for 2009, published by the Institute for Industrial Policy Studies of the National University of Seoul, ranked Dubai 16th out of 65 global economies, saying it is more competitive than Japan, Germany, France and New Zealand.

The report, which is published annually since 2001, considers Dubai as the most competitive economy in the Middle East.

Tokyo - Japan's jobless rate hit the worst level in more than three years, the government said Tuesday.

The unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage point to 4.4 per cent in February from the month before, with 2.99 million people left jobless, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said in a preliminary report.

Japan's working community faces a tough time, and "the deterioration of payrolls is getting severe," the ministry said.

Manila  - Economic growth in developing Asia was expected to slow to its lowest rate in more than a decade due to the global economic crisis, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Tuesday.

The Asian Development Outlook, the annual report of the Manila-based ADB, forecasts economic growth in Asia to slide to 3.4 per cent, down from 6.3 per cent last year and 9.5 per cent in 2007.

The report said that if the global economy experiences a mild recovery next year, the economic growth for the region could expand 6 per cent in 2010.