
Brazil is preparing a package of incentive but this time to promote exports which suffered significantly last year because of the global slowdown, announced Finance minister Guido Mantega in an inteview with Folha de Sao Paulo.

Encouraging news from the United States labour market: employers shed fewer jobs than expected in February, cutting 36,000 jobs. This was better than the 50,000 analysts had been expecting.

France will support Greece following its efforts to reduce its deficit and has no intention of seeing the country fall by the wayside because the reason for creating the Euro is at stake, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

Yorkshire pudding makers have launched a bid to gain European legal protections currently enjoyed by other regional delicacies such as Scotch whisky and champagne. Under EU law, businesses in other countries can be prevented from making products which are named after specific regions of the European Union.

Argentina will make an offer to restructure the 20 billion US dollars of defaulted debt by the end of this month, Economy Minister Amado Boudou said on Friday.

Brazilian annual inflation rose above government target (4.5%) levels for a second consecutive month in February reaching 4.83%, up from 4.59% in January, Brazilian Census and Geography Bureau, or IBGE, said Friday.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said China must reverse its widening income gap between rich and poor. He said benefits of a growing economy - expected to expand by 8% this year - should be distributed more fairly.

Argentina’s central bank interim chief seems condemned to be the first victim of the political clash between the Executive and Congress over the government’s use of central bank reserves to pay maturing debt in 2010.

Two political allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Greece should sell off some of its islands to pay off its debts. Greece's Prime Minister, George Papandreou, is due to meet Ms Merkel in Berlin Friday for talks about his country's economic crisis.

The Bank of England opted Thursday against providing fresh aid for the economy after a year of record low interest rates and emergency stimulus measures. Its rate-setting committee marked the first anniversary of quantitative easing by leaving the program unchanged at £200bn and holding borrowing costs at 0.5%.