Economy

• Monday, March 8th 2010 - 07:15 UTC

  Sarkozy promised support for Greece “or else there will be no more Euro”

  

  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.

• Monday, March 8th 2010 - 07:01 UTC

  Yorkshire pudding makers with 18th century recipe fight for EU legal protection

  

  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.

• Saturday, March 6th 2010 - 11:59 UTC

  Argentina trusts it will reach understanding with bond holders’ end of March

  

  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.

• Saturday, March 6th 2010 - 11:45 UTC

  Brazil approaching the moment interest rates can only be increased

  

  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.

• Saturday, March 6th 2010 - 11:40 UTC

  China promised to reverse income gap between rich and poor

  

  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.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:49 UTC

  Central bank acting president, first victim of political clash in Argentina

  

  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.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:33 UTC

  Greek PM in Berlin will test Germany’s commitment

  

  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.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:29 UTC

  Bank of England leaves QE program and interest rates unchanged

  

  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%.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:25 UTC

  Euro zone interest rate left at record low of 1% for tenth month

  

  The European Central Bank (ECB) has kept the Euro zone benchmark interest rate at its record low of 1% for the 10th month in a row, as expected. ECB also signalled it would scale back the special lending measures introduced during the financial crisis even though the economy in the 16 countries that use the Euro is only barely growing.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:21 UTC

  China surprises with a slower growth of its 2010 defence budget policy

  

  China announced a slowdown in the growth of its much-watched defence budget. The planned increase of just 7.5% on last year's military spending is the smallest hike after more than two decades of annual double-digit increases.