Global Economy | featured news

China's factory growth cooled to multi-month lows in February as domestic demand dipped, weighing on firms already hit by slack foreign sales and underlining the patchiness of the country's economic recovery.

China plans major bond market reform to raise the money the ruling Communist Party needs for a 40 trillion yuan ($6.4 trillion) urbanization program to buoy economic growth and close a chasm between the country's urban rich and rural poor.

The European Union's official economists predicted the euro-zone economy will shrink in 2013 for the second year in a row and for the third year of the past five, in a forecast that sees little hope that easing financial-market tensions in the region will provide a jolt to the real economy any time soon.

Iceland's biggest IT company CCP is what the island needs to leave its economic crisis behind. It is global, growing and employs hundreds but its tale is also one of frustration that echoes concerns about the country's future.

Even as the euro zone periphery starts to spy some glimmers of hope, concern is mounting that Germany is drifting apart from other countries at the core of the single currency bloc, notably France.

Tens of thousands of anti-austerity demonstrators took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday as unions staged a general strike to protest government spending cuts and tax hikes, which some predict will push unemployment to an alarming 30 percent. Police said up to 40,000 people were participating in two separate marches in central Athens that were so far peaceful.

China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports, a milestone in the Asian nation’s challenge to the U.S. dominance in global commerce that emerged after the end of World War II in 1945.

Japan's stock market is experiencing a rally unmatched since bulls ruled in the 1980s, as a weak yen and expectations of much bolder steps by the central bank draws investors into the long-dormant market.

The vast U.S. services sector expanded against last month, extending a three-year run of growth, while European business optimism hit an eight-month high, suggesting the euro zone economy was starting to recover.

The Greek government says its painful austerity drive is paying off, with the budget deficit reduced to 6.6 percent of annual output in 2012 from 9.4 percent a year earlier. A finance ministry statement Monday said that, not counting the cost of servicing Greece's debt mountain, the government posted a modest budget surplus of €434 million ($588 million) last year.