China's trade surplus widened to a record 29.3 billion US dollars in September as exports withstood the global economic slowdown and falling commodity prices reduced the import bill.
Coordinated global action is starting to reverse the tide of the financial crisis, but governments also need to deploy all instruments to limit damage to the real economy, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told world financial leaders meeting in Washington.
Argentina's Economy Minister Carlos Fernández, not known for his loquacity, spoke at large about the international financial market meltdown during the IMF and World Bank annual assemblies in Washington.
The days when emerging economies were depended on the International Monetary Fund, IMF are over and so are over the days when Latinamerica had no voice in international affairs, said Brazilian president Lula da Silva in Spain.
The Unites States automobile giants General Motors and Chrysler are in talks about a possible merger, according to reports in the US media. Apparently talks have been going on for a month but details of the deal are not clear and neither party has made any direct official comments.
China's Communist Party leaders agreed on a package of rural reforms that could shape the country's economic policy over the coming years. A four-day enclave including President Hu Jintao had approved major issues on reform, Xinhua news agency said.
No details were given but it is thought farmers will now have more power to transfer or rent out their land.
World financial leaders endorsed on Sunday an action plan announced by the seven leading advanced economies to combat the international financial crisis in what IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn called the first big success in coordination to halt the downward spiral in world markets and support the global financial system.
Latin America's governments will have to watch carefully their financial systems liquidity and try to ensure gains in eliminating inflation, said on Friday Anoop Singh, the International Monetary Fund Director for the region.
Brazilian Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes anticipated a record 2008/09 grain crop close to 144.5 million tons which would mark a new record, and discarded that the global financial crisis would have an impact on agriculture on the short term.
In a surprise move, which reverberated across the international community, Russia issued a four billion Euro state loan to Iceland. The statement on Russia's central bank website reads that the loan maturing in three-four years and an interest rate as low as 30-50 basis points above Libor has been given the green light by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.