WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist said Monday that Greece needs to cut wages to boost competitiveness and pull the country out of its economic quagmire.Greece “needs a dramatic decrease in its debt. That’s the subject of negotiations,” said Olivier Blanchard.“But that’s only half of what it needs, and maybe in a way it’s the easier half. “The other half is competitiveness ... Either you basically increase productivity growth a lot and quickly, and you keep wage

Australia’s central bank unexpectedly kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged as it assesses the effect on the nation’s economy of its two previous cuts. Governor Glenn Stevens and his board left the overnight cash-rate target at 4.25 percent, the Reserve Bank of Australia said in a statement in Sydney Tuesday. The decision was predicted by three of 27 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The other 24 forecast a quarter percentage-point reduction. Stevens’s decision reflects confidence the

MILAN (AFP) ― Italy’s Fiat has been hit by weak markets in Europe and Brazil and reliance on its U.S. partner Chrysler, Standard & Poor’s ratings agency warned Monday as it threatened to downgrade the auto giant.Stock in Fiat and truck maker Fiat Industrial fell sharply over the announcement, with their shares dropping by more than two percent while the benchmark FTSE Mib index in Milan was down 0.3 percent.Fiat, which also owns luxury car makers Ferrari and Maserati, is Italy’s biggest private

China’s decision to allow Citigroup Inc. to issue credit cards in its own name may signal a step toward the government in Beijing opening its banking industry. New York-based Citigroup is the second foreign bank, and the first Western one, to be permitted to issue credit cards in China. The announcement Monday came as the World Trade Organization, acting on a U.S. complaint, probes the legality China’s refusal to let foreign companies issue their own bank cards denominated in its currency or to

Global smartphone shipments surged 55 percent in the fourth quarter, as demand for Apple Inc.’s iPhone 4S countered declines by Research In Motion Ltd. and Nokia Oyj, International Data Corporation said. Shipments advanced to 158 million units from 102 million a year earlier, exceeding IDC’s forecast for a gain of 40 percent, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based research firm said Monday in a statement.  Smartphone demand is increasing as prices for devices become more affordable, encouraging use

PARIS (AFP) ― A strike by French aviation workers was set to intensify on Tuesday with Air France saying it might fly only half of its long-haul flights.Flight disruptions were limited on Monday, the first day of a four-day action against restrictions on the right to strike, but there were a number of last-minute cancellations and delays.At Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, officials said airlines had preventively cancelled 10 percent of flights scheduled for Monday.An AFP reporter at

World food output must rise 70 percent by 2050, FAO saysThe era of falling food prices has come to an end with the world population set to add another 2 billion people, according to Cargill Inc., the U.S. farm commodities trader. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has said global food output must rise 70 percent by 2050 to feed a world population expected to grow to 9 billion from 7 billion now and as increasingly wealthy consumers in developing economies eat more meat. Food p

China cabinet decision comes a week before China-EU summitBEIJING (AFP) ― China said Monday it has banned its airlines from complying with an EU scheme to impose charges on carbon emissions opposed by more than two dozen countries including India, Russia and the United States.Beijing has said repeatedly that it opposes the new European Union plan, which was imposed with effect from Jan. 1, and which Chinese state media have warned would lead to a “trade war” in the sector.A statement on the webs

China’s economic expansion would be cut almost in half if Europe’s debt crisis worsens, a scenario that would warrant “significant” fiscal stimulus from the nation’s government, the International Monetary Fund said. Based on the IMF’s “downside” forecast for the global economy, China’s growth could drop by as much as 4 percentage points from the fund’s current projection, which is for 8.2 percent this year, the organization said in a report released Monday by its China office in Beijing. The out

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said the latest jobs report shows the economy is “on the right road” while Glenn Hubbard, an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said he’s skeptical about the meaning of the January numbers. “Unlike many of the favorable past reports, if you look beneath the surface of this one almost every indicator within it is favorable,” Summers said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” where he appeared with Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business

The European Central Bank, after two rate cuts and a series of unprecedented liquidity measures, will hold its fire this month, as it assesses the impact of those previous measures, analysts say.The recent raft of economic data, notably in Europe’s economic powerhouse Germany, has been surprisingly positive, so the bank at its meeting on Thursday looks set to wait and see how its past moves to prevent a credit crunch and boost the economy in the 17 countries are actually panning out.In December,

ATHENS (AFP) ― Greece on Sunday insisted on extending critical talks on a debt rescue into Monday, as the government’s coalition backers denounced pressure from public creditors to pass harsher austerity measures.After a five-hour meeting with his socialist, conservative and far-right allies, Prime Minister Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said the talks would continue on Monday, and that agreement had been reached on many issues.But George Karatzaferis, leader of far-right party LAOS and Antonis

Chinese shoppers on their Lunar New Year holiday were less lavish than expected at Hong Kong jewelers, curbed spending on beauty brands and slowed spending at South Korean stores. They may keep that pace in the coming year of the dragon. Holiday sales on the mainland grew 16 percent to 470 billion yuan ($75 billion), the slowest pace since the 2009 financial crisis and three percentage points below last year’s increase. China is finding it is not immune to global economic forces and the slowdown