Economy

• Saturday, December 5th 2009 - 02:55 UTC

  Brewing rift between UK and France over financial regulation

  

  Talks scheduled to take place on Friday between UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have been cancelled. They may have helped to clear the air after President Sarkozy said the UK was the “big loser” when a Frenchman got the job as EU financial regulator.

• Saturday, December 5th 2009 - 02:38 UTC

  Scrappage scheme boosted new car sales in United Kingdom

  

  New car sales in the United Kingdom soared last month as consumers took advantage of the government's car scrappage scheme. A total of 158,082 new vehicles were registered in November 2009, a huge 57.6% increase on the November 2008 figure, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.

• Saturday, December 5th 2009 - 02:36 UTC

  US unemployment in October remains above 10%: mixed reactions

  

  The US unemployment rate fell in November to 10% from 10.2% in October, Labour Department figures show. Employers in November cut the lowest number of jobs since the recession began in December 2007.

• Saturday, December 5th 2009 - 02:33 UTC

  European Central Bank begins withdrawing stimuli liquidity

  

  The European Central Bank (ECB) is to start withdrawing some of its special measures to support the economy. The bank is withdrawing some of its cheap short-term loans designed to boost the amount of money available in the markets and encourage bank lending.

• Friday, December 4th 2009 - 08:11 UTC

  Krugman praise and warnings about Brazilian economy excessive optimism

  

  Brazil has had a better performance than other countries during the current financial slowdown but it has become necessary “to closely follow so much optimism”, said Economics Nobel Prize Paul Krugman during a conference in Sao Paulo.

• Friday, December 4th 2009 - 08:04 UTC

  Iran trebled trade with Latinamerica in 2008 reaching 2.9 billion USD

  

  Iran has trebled trade with Latinamerica and Argentina has become its second partner in the region (replacing Mexico) according to Latin Business Chronicle based on data form the International Monetary Fund.

• Friday, December 4th 2009 - 05:06 UTC

  UK government warns bankers “to come back into the real world”

  

  A British government minister has told bankers “to come back into the real world” after Royal Bank of Scotland directors threatened to resign over bonuses. City Minister Lord Myners said it was unrealistic that bankers should expect to be paid million pound bonuses.

• Thursday, December 3rd 2009 - 23:37 UTC

  Exploration phase to bring financial benefit to Falklands private sector

  

  THE Falklands private sector is set to benefit financially from the next oil drilling round scheduled to begin early in February.

• Thursday, December 3rd 2009 - 08:16 UTC

  Construction reliance economy no longer an option for Spain

  

  Spanish jobless claims increased by 60,593, or 1.6 percentage point in November, the fourth monthly increase running, admitted the government on Wednesday. The number of people seeking jobless benefits rose by nearly 900,000 or 29% on the year to reach 3,868,946, the Labor ministry said.

• Thursday, December 3rd 2009 - 08:00 UTC

  Europe concerned unemployment undermining recovery

  

  Unemployment in the 16-nation Euro zone remained at 9.8% in October after being revised higher to that level in September (from 9.7 to 9.8%), according to the European Union statistics office in Luxembourg said today. This is the highest rate since December 1998.