Forex / Economy news

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Wage rises in the UK remain muted while high street spending may be beginning to show signs of slowing down in light of higher borrowing costs, according to John Gieve, one of the two deputy governors at the Bank of England...

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - Economic institute DIW said while it still expects Germany's economy to grow 0.4 pct in the second quarter, there is an increased downward risk on weak growth in the construction industry."Due to the overall positive outlook for the rest of the year, this doesn't mean the current recovery is ending, but this puts a damper on overly optimistic expectations for this year," said DIW economist Stefan Kooths in a statement published by the institute...

ATHENS (Thomson Financial) - Greece's May imports, excluding services, increased by 5 pct year-on-year to 4.801 bln eur from 4.570 bln eur, according to provisional data from the National Statistical Service (NSS) of Greece.Exports, also excluding services, grew 3...

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - UK house price inflation continued to accelerate in the second quarter this year but showed further signs of cooling, research by Nationwide showed.In a quarterly survey of the sector, the country's biggest building society said house prices were up an annual 10...

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China's customs department said the country's imports of crude oil in the first half of 2007 rose 11.2 pct year-on-year to 81.54 mln tons while exports dropped 39.3 pct to 1.82 mln tons.For the month of June alone, imports of crude oil amounted to 14...

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - The UK recorded its lowest trade in goods deficit in almost two years, although the previous month's deficit was revised sharply higher.The office for National Statistics said the UK's trade in goods deficit with the rest of the world was 6...

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - The Statistics Commission has backed the Bank of England's warnings that the quality of key economic data may be damaged by moving the Office of National Statistics and reducing staff numbers, The Times reported.In an annual report released yesterday, the watchdog responsible for the integrity of National Statistics threw its weight behind the BoE's concerns that relocating the ONS to Newport from London risks damaging vital economic figures used to make decisions on steering the economy, the paper said...

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has hinted that his first budget may include reform of the tax breaks enjoyed by the private equity sector, according to a report in The Guardian.The newspaper said that while Darling was reluctant to criticise private equity firms, he emphasised that the tax system had to be fair and that he would deal with any abuses in the autumn pre-budget report or next spring's budget...

STOCKHOLM (Thomson Financial) - Consumer prices in Sweden rose 0.2 pct in June from May, and were up 1.9 pct year-on-year, the Central Statistical Bureau reported.Market expectations were for an increase of 0.1 pct month-on-month and a yearly rise of 1...

STOCKHOLM (Thomson Financial) - Swedish industrial output increased 0.4 pct in May from April and was up 3.6 pct from a year earlier, the Central Statistical Bureau (SCB) said.During the three months from March to May, industrial output increased by 0...

HELSINKI (Thomson Financial) - Finland's trade surplus in May widened to 435 mln eur from 272 mln eur a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the National Board of Customs.The trade surplus for the first five months of this year stood at 3...

JAKARTA (Thomson Financial) - The International Monetary Fund expects Indonesia's gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year to beat the Fund's initial projection of 6 percent, given strong exports and rising levels of direct investment, IMF Indonesian representative Stephen Schwartz said...

PARIS (Thomson Financial) - Seasonally adjusted French industrial output in May rose 0.4 pct from April, after falling 1.0 pct in April from March, the Insee statistics office said.Economists polled by Thomson Financial News had expected production in May to rise 0...

SINGAPORE (Thomson Financial) - The economy grew at a faster-than-expected year-on-year clip of 8.2 percent for the second quarter to June, on the back of a rebound in manufacturing, with the data suggesting further upside to full year growth estimates for the city state, economists said...

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Online recruitment in Europe rose for the fifth straight month in June, driven by rising demand in France and the UK which offset lacklustre performances in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, a survey by Monster showed.The Monster Employment index for Europe jumped to 145 in June from 143 in April, and is up 24 points year-on-year...

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China's exports in June rose 27.1 pct year-on-year to 103.27 bln usd, while imports were up 14.2 pct at 76.36 bln usd, the General Administration of Customs said.Exports in the first half of the year stood at 546.73 bln usd, up 27...

SYDNEY (Thomson Financial) - New Zealand businesses have become more pessimistic about the outlook for the next six months, the New Zealand Institute of Economics Research (NZIER) said Tuesday.The NZIER said its second-quarter survey of business expectations, conducted in June, had revealed that that a seasonally adjusted net balance of 30 percent of companies expected the general business situation to deteriorate in the subsequent six months...

SINGAPORE (Thomson Financial) - Singapore's better-than-expected 8.2 percent year-on-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second quarter, following a 6.4 percent rise in the first, shows there is further upside to full year growth for the city state, CIMB-GK regional economist Song Seng Wun said...

SYDNEY (Thomson Financial) - The number of Australian dwellings financed in May rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent from April to 66,040, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said on Tuesday.The increase was much smaller than what economists had forecast...

SYDNEY (Thomson Financial) - National Australia Bank's (NAB's) index of Australian business confidence, which measures expectations for the subsequent quarter, was unchanged in June from May at 15.0 points, having been 2.0 points higher in May than in April, NAB said Tuesday...