via thetrader.se

"The point is ladies and gen­tle­men that greed, for lack of a bet­ter word, is good."

Gor­don Gekko

FT.com

Christophe de Marg­erie, chief exec­u­tive of Total, the French oil group, is to be ques­tioned in court over alle­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion linked to the UN oil-for-food pro­gramme in Iraq, the FT reports. A French jus­tice offi­cial said that a deci­sion to refer Mr de Marg­erie and 18 other indi­vid­u­als to the Paris courts had been made by Serge Tour­naire http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/08/03/641556/total-chief-faces-grilling-over-oil-for-food/

China’s cen­tral bank gov­er­nor urged Wash­ing­ton on Wednes­day to act respon­si­bly to deal with its debt issues, say­ing uncer­tainty in the US Trea­suries mar­ket will under­mine the inter­na­tional mon­e­tary sys­tem and ham­per global growth, http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/08/03/641536/chinas-central-bank-chief-warns-us-on-debt/

Span­ish and Ital­ian politi­cians rushed to for­mu­late a fresh response to the debt cri­sis engulf­ing the two coun­tries as their bor­row­ing costs hit euro-era highs, the FT reports. José Luis Rodríguez Zap­a­tero, http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/08/03/641456/spain-and-italy-face-fresh-crisis/

The spec­tre of an immi­nent US default on its debt dis­ap­peared as leg­is­la­tion to increase America’s bor­row­ing author­ity cleared its last remain­ing hur­dle in the Sen­ate and was signed by Pres­i­dent Barackhttp://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/08/03/641431/us-formally-retreats-from-brink-of-default/

The United States had its triple A rat­ing con­firmed by Moody’s and Fitch on Tues­day but threats of future down­grades remain, says Reuters. Moody’s Investors Ser­vice main­tained the US Aaa rat­ing, but assigned a neg­a­tive out­look, http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/08/03/641436/moodys-and-fitch-affirm-us-ratings/

Syr­ian oppo­si­tion activists are step­ping up their lob­by­ing for inter­na­tional sanc­tions against the oil indus­try to deprive the régime of a cru­cial source of rev­enue and crip­ple its abil­ity to finance the mount­ing repres­sion of pop­u­lar protests. But while the activists are find­ing will­ing­ness for action in the US, the Euro­pean Union remains reluc­tant to broaden its sanc­tions beyond spe­cific offi­cials and busi­nesses that have direct links to the régime of Bashar al-Assad. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9e735f18-bd22-11e0-9d5d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1TkVnqGOp

Brazil has stepped up its fight against cheap imports from Asia, strength­en­ing bor­der con­trols and increas­ing antidump­ing mea­sures, as well as offer­ing $16bn in tax breaks to revive the country’s own flag­ging man­u­fac­tur­ers. Despite enjoy­ing one of the high­est growth rates in the world, Brazil has seen its indus­try shrivel over recent months as a result of the surg­ing local cur­rency, which has made exports less com­pet­i­tive and encour­aged cheap imports, mainly from China. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ea4d41d0-bd2f-11e0-9d5d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1TkVnqGOp

WSJ.com

Asian shares tum­bled Wednes­day on renewed con­cerns over the global eco­nomic out­look, with the Aus­tralian mar­ket skid­ding to an 11-month low. Japan’s Nikkei Stock Aver­age fell 1.8%, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 2.0%, South Korea’s Kospi Com­pos­ite fell 2.6% to its low­est level in more than a month and New Zealand’s NZX-50 was 0.8% lower. Dow Jones Indus­trial Aver­age futures were down seven points in screen trade. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903341404576485004189582640.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

As the specter of the Swiss franc reach­ing par­ity with the euro looms ever larger, the alarm bells and calls for help from Switzerland’s busi­nesses are grow­ing more shrill. The franc hit all-time highs ver­sus the euro and dol­lar on Tues­day as mar­kets eyed widen­ing Span­ish and Ital­ian bond yields and rushed to the safety of the Swiss cur­rency. The euro was trad­ing at around 1.1057 francs dur­ing Euro­pean after­noon trad­ing, off an ear­lier all-time low at 1.0985 francs. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903341404576483692219113326.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

The chance that finan­cial dis­tress could spread from smaller, fis­cally trou­bled euro-zone economies to a larger mem­ber state, such as Spain or Italy, bounced back to investors’ worry list Tues­day. The yields on ten-year Ital­ian and Span­ish debt accord­ingly rose, to euro-era record lev­els, at 6.22% and 6.41%, respec­tively.  Many mar­ket watch­ers say 7% for 10-year yields is a line beyond which these coun­tries would start to expe­ri­ence fund­ing prob­lems, said Simon Penn, a strate­gist at UBS in Lon­don. Seven per­cent was, after all, the point at which Greece, Ire­land and Por­tu­gal finally threw in the towel and asked for help. That level is get­ting rather close for Rome and Madrid, too, espe­cially if investors are in the mood to test those gov­ern­ments. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903341404576483832152216742.html?mod=WSJEurope_hpp_LEFTTopStories

A round of aggres­sive bud­get cuts will ham­per the British military’s abil­ity to act and reduce the influ­ence abroad of the U.S.’s biggest mil­i­tary ally, a report by a par­lia­men­tary defense com­mit­tee said. The report said the U.K. Armed Forces are in dan­ger of falling below the min­i­mum size and capa­bil­ity required to deliver on their cur­rent mil­i­tary com­mit­ments and will face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges between 2015 and 2020, after the bud­get cuts take place. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903341404576484560905589844.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLESecondNews

Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer George Osborne should relax his tough aus­ter­ity régime to boost sag­ging demand in the U.K. and not rely on the Bank of Eng­land to res­cue the econ­omy with more quan­ti­ta­tive eas­ing, a lead­ing U.K. research group said Wednes­day. The National Insti­tute of Eco­nomic and Social Research said fis­cal pol­icy in the U.K. is too tight and Mr. Osborne should con­sider tem­po­rary tax cuts for the low paid to spur demand for goods and ser­vices, which has col­lapsed as a con­se­quence of stag­nant wage growth, high infla­tion and high house­hold debt.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903341404576484201469463560.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLESecondNews

The auto indus­try stag­gered through another slug­gish month in July, as Gen­eral Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. posted mod­est sales gains while Toy­ota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. suf­fered big declines because of short­ages. Chrysler Group LLC was alone among the major car mak­ers in post­ing a sig­nif­i­cant U.S. sales increase, log­ging a 20% gain. In total, auto mak­ers sold 1,059,601 cars and light trucks, just 0.9% more than a year ear­lier, accord­ing to Auto­data Corp. The total trans­lated to an annual rate of 12.23 mil­lion vehi­cles. That was up from June’s rate of 11.56 mil­lion vehi­cles andhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903341404576484103864570320.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

Amer­i­cans stepped up sav­ing in June and cut spend­ing, in a broad retrench­ment that is both a cause of the slow­ing eco­nomic recov­ery and a reac­tion to it. Con­sumer spend­ing, which accounts for 70% of eco­nomic activ­ity, decreased 0.2% in June, the biggest drop since Sep­tem­ber 2009, com­pared with a 0.1% increase in May, the Com­merce Depart­ment said Tues­day. Per­sonal income increased a scant 0.1%, while the wages and salaries that are the fuel of con­sumer spend­ing declined slightly. With hir­ing slow and unem­ploy­ment at 9.2%, peo­ple whohttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903520204576483882838360382.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

Gloom in Australia’s retail sec­tor deep­ened in June with sales falling unex­pect­edly, with the out­come fur­ther erod­ing sup­port for the Aus­tralian dol­lar, which touched its low­est lev­els since mid-July. Aus­tralian retail sales fell 0.1% to a sea­son­ally adjusted 20.54 bil­lion Aus­tralian dol­lars (US$22 bil­lion) in June from A$20.57 bil­lion in May, the Aus­tralian Bureau of Sta­tis­tics said Wednes­day. Econ­o­mists expected a rise of 0.3% on the month. Sales rose 0.3% in the sec­ond quar­ter from the first in chain vol­ume terms, meet­ing expec­ta­tions. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903520204576485073452571538.html?mod=WSJASIA_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

The annual rate of infla­tion across devel­oped economies eased in June, the first decline since Novem­ber 2010. If sus­tained, that drop in the infla­tion rate could make eas­ier the job of pol­icy mak­ers, who had faced bal­anc­ing surg­ing com­mod­ity prices and frag­ile eco­nomic recov­ery. How­ever, the infla­tion rate decline may also reflect a slow­down in the global econ­omy. The Orga­ni­za­tion for Eco­nomic Coöper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment released data Tues­day show­ing con­sumer prices in its 34 mem­ber coun­tries rose 3.1% in the 12 months to June, hav­ing risen 3.2% in the year to May. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903341404576483661437991664.html?mod=WSJASIA_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

Marketwatch.com

Growth in China’s service-sector mod­er­ated for a sec­ond month in July due to a weaker rate of increase in new busi­ness, accord­ing to the results of a sur­vey released by HSBC Wednes­day. The sea­son­ally adjusted busi­ness activ­ity index dropped to 53.5 in July from 54.1 in June, HSBC said. “Back­logs of work in the Chi­nese ser­vice sec­tor fell dur­ing July, sug­gest­ing lim­ited pres­sure on firms’ capac­ity amid below-par growth of incom­ing new busi­ness,” HSBC said. It added that while employ­ment in the ser­vice sec­tor grew in July, the pace of job cre­ation “was only mod­est, and eased to the slow­est since May 2009.” Infla­tion­ary http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chinas-service-sector-growth-eased-in-july-hsbc-2011–08-02

Chi­nese credit-rating agency Dagong Global Credit Rat­ing Co. on Wednes­day again down­graded U.S. sov­er­eign debt and warned of fur­ther such moves, the state-run Xin­hua news agency reported, though the action was unlikely to affect mar­kets. Dagong cut U.S. Trea­surys to A from A+, with a neg­a­tive out­look, say­ing growth in U.S. debt is still out­pac­ing rev­enue growth. The lat­est move fol­lowed a Dagong down­grade of U.S. debt from AA to A+ in Novem­ber, cit­ing the launch of the Fed­eral Reserve’s sec­ond round of quan­ti­ta­tive eas­ing. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chinese-agency-cuts-us-debt-rating-again-2011–08-02–2155480

Reuters.com

Gold hit a record high on Wednes­day as investors made a bee­line for bul­lion to shel­ter from the impact on finan­cial mar­kets of the dete­ri­o­rat­ing out­look for the global econ­omy and Europe’s wors­en­ing debt cri­sis. Spot gold rose to an all-time high of $1,661.14 in early Asian hours, hit­ting its ninth record in 16 trad­ing ses­sions and up nearly 17 per­cent so far this year. It was trad­ing at $1,657.88 by 0424 GMT, lit­tle changed from the pre­vi­ous close. U.S. gold gained nearly 1 per­cent to $1,660.6. It rose to a high of $1,664.2, just 30 cents off the record set on Tues­day. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/03/us-markets-precious-idUSTRE7592IU20110803

Russ­ian Prime Min­is­ter Vladimir Putin accused the United States Mon­day of liv­ing beyond its means “like a par­a­site” on the global econ­omy and said dol­lar dom­i­nance was a threat to the finan­cial mar­kets. “They are liv­ing beyond their means and shift­ing a part of the weight of their prob­lems to the world econ­omy,” Putin told the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi while tour­ing its lake­side sum­mer camp some five hours drive north of Moscow. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-russia-putin-usa-idUSTRE77052R20110801

Bank of Japan Gov­er­nor Masaaki Shi­rakawa said on Wednes­day the cen­tral bank will need to care­fully exam­ine eco­nomic and price devel­op­ments with an eye on the effect of recent yen rises. Shi­rakawa said there were some mer­its to a strong yen for com­pa­nies http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/03/japan-economy-boj-idUST9E7IS01620110803

Pres­sure will build among Fed­eral Reserve pol­i­cy­mak­ers at a meet­ing next week for mea­sures to pep up a stum­bling recov­ery with a stronger com­mit­ment to rock-bottom inter­est rates. The Fed is not expected to announce any new mea­sures at its meet­ing on Tues­day. But behind closed doors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers could be set­ting the stage for fur­ther action, most likely some form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that would bol­ster a promise of low inter­est rates as far as the eye can see. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/03/us-usa-fed-idUSTRE76Q5EQ20110803

Bloomberg.com

Crude for Sep­tem­ber deliv­ery dropped as much as 69 cents to $93.10 a bar­rel in elec­tronic trad­ing on the New York Mer­can­tile Exchange, and was at $93.53 at 2:27 p.m. Syd­ney time. It’s the longest los­ing streak since the five days of declines to May 6. The con­tract yes­ter­day slid $1.10 to $93.79. Prices are 13 per­cent higher in the past year. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011–08-02/oil-declines-for-fourth-day-in-new-york-after-u-s-personal-spending-drops.html

Glenn Stevens sig­naled he will raise inter­est rates when global risks dis­si­pate, a mes­sage dis­missed by a bond mar­ket see­ing an esca­la­tion in risks among the nation’s trad­ing part­ners. Stevens held the overnight cash rate tar­get at 4.75 per­cent yes­ter­day and for the first time since Octo­ber — a month before the last increase in bor­row­ing costs — cited in his state­ment the prospect of rais­ing the bench­mark. He indi­cated an “acute sense of uncer­tainty in global finan­cial mar­kets” had stayed his hand. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011–08-02/australia-s-rate-increase-signal-goes-unheeded-by-bond-market.html

Hong Kong devel­op­ers are poised to snap up land in China at a time when their main­land rivals’ finances are being sapped by gov­ern­ment prop­erty curbs. Builders includ­ing Sun Hung Kai Prop­er­ties Ltd. (16) and Che­ung Kong (Hold­ings) Ltd. took in HK$66 bil­lion ($8.47 bil­lion) from new apart­ment sales in the six months ended June, a first-half record, accord­ing to Cen­taline Prop­erty Agency Ltd. Chi­nese devel­op­ers face a short­age of credit and higher inter­est rates, prompt­ing Stan­dard & Poor’s to cut its out­look on the sec­tor. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011–08-02/china-beckons-to-hong-kong-builders-as-mainland-firms-squeezed.html

The two-year-old U.S. recovery’s stay­ing power may be dimin­ish­ing as con­sumers and the gov­ern­ment pare spend­ing, say five of the nine econ­o­mists on the aca­d­e­mic panel that dates reces­sions. “This econ­omy is really bal­anced on the edge,” Har­vard Uni­ver­sity eco­nom­ics pro­fes­sor Mar­tin Feld­stein, a mem­ber of the Busi­ness Cycle Dat­ing Com­mit­tee of the National Bureau of Eco­nomic Research, said yes­ter­day in an inter­view on Bloomberg Television’s “Sur­veil­lance Mid­day” with Tom Keene. “There’s now a 50 per­cent chance that we could slide into a new reces­sion. Noth­ing has given us much growth.” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011–08-02/feldstein-recession-panel-members-see-rising-odds-of-a-renewed-u-s-slump.html

CNBC.com

The bear mar­ket is on its way back, econ­o­mist and con­trar­ian investor Marc Faber, the edi­tor and pub­lisher of The Gloom Boom & Doom Report told CNBC Tues­day. “The bear mar­ket is start­ing. When you com­pare equi­ties to bonds and cash I don’t think equi­ties are very pos­i­tive,” Faber said in an inter­view.  Mar­kets have been more tur­bu­lent in recent months as debt crises in both the US and the euro zone threat­ened to dam­age growth there. http://www.cnbc.com/id/43983284

The US is only a few years away from reach­ing the same debt lev­els that pushed Greece to the brink of ruin, for­mer comp­trol­ler gen­eral and head of the Come­back Amer­ica Ini­tia­tive David Walker said. As the ratio of its debt to gross national prod­uct eclipsed 100 per­cent and surged toward 150 per­cent, Greece has twice in the last two years nearly defaulted on its debt. Only suc­ces­sive bailout pack­ages from the Euro­pean Union and Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund pre­vented cat­a­stro­phe. http://www.cnbc.com/id/43984077

Europe is a “train wreck” and on the “brink of a major finan­cial cri­sis,” Scott Min­erd, CIO of the fixed-income firm Guggen­heim Part­ners, told CNBC Tues­day. The way Europe is oper­at­ing right now, it’s what I called recently ‘cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance,’” Min­erd said, or “basi­cally doing the same thing think­ing they’re going to get a dif­fer­ent out­come.” http://www.cnbc.com/id/43988195

WashingtonPost.com

“In Rus­sia, it’s a sta­tus thing now,” Jorge Uribe, a real estate agent with One Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty Inc. in Coral Gables, Florida, said in a tele­phone inter­view. “If you’re wealthy and you say you have a place in Miami, it’s like say­ing back in the old days, ‘I own a place in Ibiza or Monaco.’ It’s a cock­tail con­ver­sa­tion thing.” Inter­na­tional investors are buy­ing some of the prici­est homes in Amer­ica as the broader hous­ing mar­ket slumps and a weak dol­lar makes U.S. prop­erty more of a bar­gain. Sales of res­i­dences above $20 mil­lion are ris­ing in New York, Cal­i­for­nia and Florida, which are pop­u­lar busi­ness and vaca­tion des­ti­na­tions for for­eign­ers, accord­ing to Miller Samuel Inc., DataQuick and real estate bro­kers who cater to lux­ury buy­ers. http://washpost.bloomberg.com/story?docId=1376-LP2CNP1A1I4J01-4P86QP4513IDAINGRT4C31RB0F

BBC.co.uk

The UK’s con­struc­tion indus­try con­tin­ued to grow in July, a sur­vey of the sec­tor has indi­cated. The Markit/Cips con­struc­tion pur­chas­ing man­agers’ index (PMI) was vir­tu­ally unchanged at 53.5 points in July from 53.6 points in June. A num­ber above 50 indi­cates growth in orders. But employ­ment in the sec­tor in the sec­tor fell for a sec­ond month. The data comes after a sim­i­lar sur­vey of man­u­fac­tur­ing on Mon­day showed its first con­trac­tion in two years. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14376540

Telegraph.co.uk

Report­ing pre-tax prof­its down 33pc to £2.64bn in the six months to June 30, Bob Dia­mond, chief exec­u­tive of Bar­clays, said the bank had already cut 1,400 jobs in 2011 and that redun­dan­cies this year are likely be more than dou­ble this num­ber. The drop in prof­its was lower than the mar­ket had been expect­ing and was largely the result of a £1bn pro­vi­sion against the cost of com­pen­sat­ing cus­tomers mis-sold pay­ment pro­tec­tion insur­ance and a fall in the value of the bank’s gain on its hold­ings of its own debt. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/8676483/Barclays-profits-fall-sharply-warns-of-3000-jobs-cuts.html

Guardian.co.uk

Repub­li­cans have insisted repeat­edly over the last few days that the deal does not include tax rises. But Obama, in a short state­ment in the Rose Gar­den, said the country’s huge national debt could only be reduced through a com­bi­na­tion of spend­ing cuts and tax rises, par­tic­u­larly for the wealthy and big cor­po­ra­tions such as those in the oil indus­try. “Every­one is going to have to chip in,” he said. “That is only fair. That’s the prin­ci­ple I’ll be fight­ing for dur­ing the next phase of this process.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/02/barack-obama-senate-debt-deal

Xinhuanet.com

China’s con­sumer prices will remain high in the third quar­ter with July’s infla­tion fig­ure fore­cast to be between 6 to 6.7 per­cent, accord­ing to ana­lysts. The con­sumer price index, a main gauge of infla­tion, will climb to 6.5 per­cent year-on-year in July after hit­ting a three-year high of 6.4 per­cent in June. But this may not be the high­est in the year, said Lu Zheng­wei, ana­lyst with the Indus­trial Bankhttp://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011–08/03/c_131026896.htm

The Chi­nese econ­omy will not expe­ri­ence a “double-dip” nor big fluc­tu­a­tions, and the gov­ern­ment is capa­ble and con­fi­dent of keep­ing steady and rel­a­tively fast growth in the long-run, an offi­cial said Tues­day. China’s poten­tial growth rate will remain at a high level in the future on the back of the deep­en­ing process of indus­tri­al­iza­tion and urban­iza­tion, as well as accel­er­ated eco­nomic restruc­tur­ing, which will release huge domes­tic demand, said Li Pumin, spokesper­son with the National Devel­op­ment and Reform Com­mis­sion (NDRC). http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011–08/02/c_131025372.htm

The Orga­ni­za­tion for Eco­nomic Coöper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (OECD) gave a vote of con­fi­dence for the Greek ambi­tious aus­ter­ity plan in Athens on Tues­day, say­ing the country’s econ­omy would grow by 0.6 per­cent in 2012. Pre­sent­ing the organization’s lat­est eco­nomic sur­vey of Greece, OECD Sec­re­tary Gen­eral Angel Gur­ria expressed his optism over the prospect of the debt-ridden econ­omy. “I am here to deposit a vote of con­fi­dence in Greece, Greek peo­ple, econ­omy and the gov­ern­ment,” said Gur­ria in a press con­fer­ence at the National Bank of Greece con­fer­ence hall in cen­tral Athens.http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011–08/03/c_131025699.htm

TheHindu.com

The Cen­tre on Tues­day noti­fied the removal of cap on cot­ton exports for the remain­ing period of the fibre sea­son in the wake of abun­dant avail­abil­ity and a crash in prices. The cot­ton sea­son runs from Octo­ber to Sep­tem­ber. In Octo­ber last year, the gov­ern­ment had capped cot­ton exports at 55 lakh bales (170 kg each) to pro­tect the domes­tic tex­tiles indus­try in the face of ris­ing raw mate­r­ial prices. An addi­tional 10 lakh bales were per­mit­ted for export in June, after prices had cor­rected sharply. http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/article2316889.ece

EconomicTimes.com

Seek­ing to make a strong state­ment about the government’s resolve to stay within the bud­geted fis­cal deficit, Finance Min­is­ter Pranab Mukher­jee pre­sented a mod­est first sup­ple­men­tary for the 2011-12 fis­cal.  The gov­ern­ment on Tues­day sought Parliament’s sanc­tion for an addi­tional 34,724 crore expen­di­ture for 2011-12, but the net outgo was much lower at 9,000 crore.  “I will keep my bor­row­ing within limit,” Mukher­jee said. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/fm-to-keep-new-expenses-outgo-within-budgeted-fiscal-deficit/articleshow/9461183.cms

Yonhapnews.co.kr

South Korea’s exports con­tributed more to eco­nomic growth than domes­tic demand and had a pos­i­tive impact on the cre­ation of jobs in Asia’s fourth-largest econ­omy in 2010, a think tank said Wednes­day. The eco­nomic growth con­tri­bu­tion rate of exports reached 62.2 per­cent last year, much higher than domes­tic consumption’s 37.8 per­cent, accord­ing to the Insti­tute for Inter­na­tional Trade (IIT). With­out out­bound ship­ments, South Korea’s econ­omy would have grown in the lower 2 per­cent range instead of the 6.2 per­cent growth reached in 2010. The coun­try exported a record US$466.4 bil­lion worth of goods last year. http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2011/08/03/89/0502000000AEN20110803005300320F.HTML

TehranTimes.com

Iran’s petro­chem­i­cal exports will amount to $14 bil­lion by the end of the cur­rent Iran­ian cal­en­dar year (March 20, 2012), the National Petro­chem­i­cal Com­pany (NPC) man­ag­ing direc­tor said here on Tues­day.  “Iran­ian com­pa­nies pro­duced more than 10.2 mil­lion tons of petro­chem­i­cals in the first three months of the cur­rent year, indi­cat­ing a two per­cent growth com­pared to the same period of the year before,” the SHANA news agency quoted Abdol­hos­sein Bayat as say­ing. http://www.tehrantimes.com/index.php/economy-and-business/973-irans-annual-petchem-exports-to-hit-14b-

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