News

– Commodity- and EMG currencies saw a nice rebound overnight, after they have been mainly under pressure. Also equity markets in Asia rallied towards the end of their session. Oil continued to drift lower from the 11 months high hit last Friday. EURUSD has digested S+P’s EFSF outlook revision and another Greece downgrade well. – Stocks: Nikkei +0.92 %, Hang …

MEXICO CITY: Germany clashed with some of its key G20 partners on Saturday over raising the eurozone’s firewall at the start of a key meeting of finance ministers and central bankers dominated by the debt crisis. With markets calmer due to the latest massive bailout for Greece, divisions intensified over how to handle the crisis and its fallout. Countries including the …

Emerging markets are finding their voices within the Group of 20, a development that will reshape global efforts to avoid financial meltdowns and shape economic growth. The dominant issue at this weekend’s G20 gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors is putting an end to worries that a big European economy could go bankrupt. While the path to a …

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Germany is easing its opposition to a bigger European bailout fund, officials said, smoothing the way for the world’s leading economies to secure nearly $2 trillion in firepower to prevent further fallout from the euro-zone’s sovereign debt crisis. Finance leaders from the Group of 20, meeting in Mexico City this weekend, are trying to build up …

China set targets for increasing production capacity at key polysilicon and solar cell makers, part of the government’s plan to ensure its companies survive a slump in prices. China wants each “leading” company to have 50,000 tons a year of polysilicon capacity by 2015 and targets 5 gigawatts for each of its top solar-cell makers, according to a five-year plan …

China’s economic growth may slip to 8.59 percent this year due to slowing in Europe, while inflation will ease to 3.3 percent, according to a Xiamen University and National University of Singapore joint forecast. Growth may bottom out in the second quarter, slowing to 8.35 percent before picking up again, according to the forecast released today at a forum in …

  Feb. 23, 2012 – Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — Nathan Sheets, global head of international economics at Citigroup Inc. and former head of the Federal Reserve’s international economic division, talks about the outlook for China’s economy. Sheets speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday.” (Source: Bloomberg) (Bloomberg)

Asian stocks advanced, heading for a record 10th weekly advance, and crude oil gained after U.S. jobless claims held at a four-year low and German business confidence exceeded forecasts. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.3 percent as of 9:45 a.m. inTokyo, while Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures gained 0.1 percent. The Australian dollar strengthened 0.1 percent and South …

(Source: Asia Tech News) New information from the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank confirms what we’ve been talking about on this blog for some time now. Singapore is one of the friendliest environments on the planet for entrepreneurs. The latest Doing Business report ranks Singapore at the top of its ‘ease of doing business’ rankings for the sixth …

The Alibaba Group offers up to $2.5 billion to take its Hong Kong-listed B2B trading platform private, four years after the company went public. The market gave a thumbs up yesterday to Alibaba Group’s proposal to privatise its Hong Kong listed business-to-business (B2B) unit Alibaba.com a little more than four years after it went public. Or how else does one …