Global markets slumped Monday amid fears over the fallout of the credit crisis, after Goldman Sachs downgraded Citibank and forecast 15 billion US dollars in losses from the US subprime market.
United States Trade Representative Susan Schwab said Monday in Singapore that the Doha round of global trade negotiations is “not dead” and an agreement could be reached in the next 14 months.
A “strong' US dollar is in the US interest and it 'goes without saying' that the currency's value should be set by currency markets”, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Friday ahead of this weekend's G20 meeting in South Africa.
The US Federal Reserve will make four economic forecasts each year, up from the current two, which will include more information on overall inflation projections, chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.
US retail sales and producer price figures have pointed to a weakening of demand in the world's largest economy. The first month of the 2008 federal budget showed a 55.6 billion US dollars deficit.
United States president George W Bush will leave his successor a country in debt up to its ears, a depressed dollar as never seen before and a nation with a class structure closer to that of Mexico or Brazil, according to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz in an article published in the December edition of Vanity Fair.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that a host of economic problems in United States, including the severe housing slump, will cause business growth to slow noticeably in coming months.
A Chinese official sent the US dollar plunging in markets when he said China would shift more of its huge international reserves into “stronger currencies” such as the Euro to offset “weak” currencies like the dollar.
The United States House of Representatives approved Thursday, in a 285 to 132 vote, a long delayed free-trade agreement with Peru, the first such accord passed by Congress since the opposition Democrats won control last year.
Members of the United States Congress accused Yahoo of lying about its co-operation with the Chinese Government in an incident that led to a dissident's imprisonment, according to The Washington Post.