Economic News

Jo Thornhill, Financial Mail28 January 2007 Banks are interested only in making profits, will do anything to widen margins and rake in cash with little or no thought for their customers. This is the withering verdict of a major Financial Mail survey into customer attitudes to the big banks. WANT TO KNOW MORE? Banks using 'underhand' tactics Get your mortgage fees back GUIDE: Claim back c ...

CONAKRY, Guinea (AFX) - Union leaders Sunday called off a 17-day strike that has left at least 59 people dead and brought this West African nation to an economic standstill. Union leader Ibrahima Fofana made the announcement in a live broadcast on state radio after reaching an agreement with the government. Inflation, unemployment and nationwide electricity and water shortages have fueled an ...

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFX) - European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet said a failure of the World Trade Organisation's Doha liberalisation round would be "a very big risk" to world growth in 2007. Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Trichet said the ECB is never complacent on monitoring inflation risks in the eurozone, but made no comments on interest rates. "Intr ...

LONDON (AFX) - European government bonds ended the week lower after strong money supply growth figures for the euro zone in the morning and firm US housing data in the afternoon. Euro zone money supply growth accelerated to 9.7 pct year-on-year in December, up from the 9.3 pct and ahead of the 9.4 pct analysts were expecting. Analysts said the figures will keep pressure on the European Central B ...

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China's reliance on credit and investment to fuel economic growth runs the risk of pushing up inflation and creating more non-performing loans in the banking system, International Monetary Fund managing director Rodrigo de Rato said. "Rapid growth of credit and high levels of investment are a risk for the Chinese economy and could materialize to inflation but also ineffe ...

LONDON (AFX) - The US will take centre stage next week, but there's still enough in the UK economic calendar to excite sterling markets ahead of the next Bank of England interest rate decision on Feb 8. The markets will have a raft of consumption and housing data to digest as they position themselves for the rate verdict. At the moment, the market doubts the BoE will follow January's surprise ra ...

Inflation in Japan moved more slowly than expected in December as higher food and power bills were offset by lower oil costs, official figures show. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.1% in December from a year ago, preliminary government figures showed. The data raised doubts that the Bank of Japan would lift interest rates from the current 0.25% level, analysts said. Politicians have publicly urged the Bank to keep the rate unchanged so as not to choke an economic recovery. Last week,  ...

TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - The US dollar eased back against against the yen by midday here, hit by profit-taking after gaining earlier on the back of tamer-than-expected Japanese inflation data for December which lowered expectations for a rate hike in Japan in February, dealers said. Japan's core consumer price index, which excludes volatile prices of fresh food but includes energy prices, rose 0.1 pct  ...

TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - Japanese government bond prices finished the morning session lower as quick profit-taking erased gains made earlier following the announcement of tame inflation data for December, dealers said. They said the December CPI, which came in below forecast, reduced market expectations for a February rate hike. At the break, the yield on the benchmark 10-year bond was at 1.685 pct, u ...

TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - The slower rate of consumer inflation last month, which was due to tamer energy prices, may weaken the Bank of Japan's supposed resolve to raise interest rates next month, economists said. They said there was still a chance of an increase in interest rates soon, but that this depended largely on economic growth data that are to be released in the middle of next month. The core ...