Economic News

By Michele Kambas and George Georgiopoulos NICOSIA/ATHENS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank has plenty of room to lower interest rates further even after last week's record 75 basis point cut, ECB policymakers said on Monday. Athanasios Orphanides, head of the Cyprus central bank and an ECB Governing Council member, said the euro zone economy was set for an extended downturn an ...

MADRID, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank does not exclude reducing the price of money again in the next few months, Executive Board member Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo was quoted as saying. The Spanish newspaper La Opinion de Malaga reported Gonzalez-Paramo as saying during a visit to Malaga that the inflation outlook was improving. "We don't rule out reducing the pr ...

MADRID, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank does not exclude reducing the price of money again in the next few months, Executive Board member Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo said. Gonzalez-Paramo said at a conference in Malaga which was reported by the Spanish newspaper La Opinion de Malaga, over the weekend, that the inflation outlook was improving. "We don't rule out re ...

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 8 (Reuters) - South African blue-chips shot up 8 percent and the rand firmed 2 percent against the dollar on Monday as hopes that a U.S. infrastructure plan would cushion an economic downturn spurred global equities. The Johannesburg Top-40 index of blue-chip stocks gained 8.01 percent to 18,718.38 points, its biggest one-day percentage increase in years, while the broade ...

BRUSSELS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The following are comments by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet during his testimony on Monday at an economic committee of the European Parliament. "With lower commodity prices and weakening demand, annual inflation is expected to be in line with price stability over the policy-relevant horizon." "Financial institutions s ...

By Balazs Koranyi and Sandor Peto BUDAPEST, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Hungary's central bank cut interest rates by 50 basis points to 10.5 percent at an extraordinary meeting on Monday, saying stability risks have decreased and inflation was falling faster than expected. It also said high interest rates were hurting the economy, which is expected to slide into recession next year. With Mo ...

BRUSSELS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The following are comments by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet during his testimony on Monday at an economic committee of the European Parliament. Commodity prices, inflation: "Unexpected further declines in commodity prices could put downward pressure on inflation, while upside risks to price stability could materialise if the fa ...

BRUSSELS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The following are comments by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet during his testimony on Monday at an economic committee of the European Parliament. Commodity prices, inflation: "Unexpected further declines in commodity prices could put downward pressure on inflation, while upside risks to price stability could materialise if the fa ...

LONDON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - It is still unclear how far the global financial crisis will affect a slowing economy, which can feed off each other, but medium-term growth potential is intact, Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said in an interview published on on Monday. "We still do not know -- and we may not know for some time -- how far the weakness in the financial sector will d ...

BRUSSELS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The following are comments by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet during his testimony on Monday at an economic committee of the European Parliament. Economic development: "Turning to economic development, since September, there has been an intensification of and broadening of the financial turmoil contributing in the third quarter t ...