The trade gap shrank to $58.2 billion in March, down 5.7 percent from a revised estimate of $61.7 billion in February. Wall Street analysts had expected the March gap to narrow to $61.3 billion. A $6.1 billion drop in the value of imports to $206.7 billion was the biggest on record. It was also the biggest percentage drop since December 2001, only months after the attacks on the United States and when the U.S. economy was in a downturn.

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The macro economy index chart, filed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), showed the latest figure for May was 113.3, the same as the previous four months, making a row of "green lights".

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Malaysian Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said rice supply was a key issue in a meeting between Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and his Malaysian counterpart, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
The leaders discussed "how to strengthen our cooperation to ensure food security in the region," Samak told a joint news conference after the talks.

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Power shortages and continued interest rate rises are beginning to affect economic growth. According to the latest figures from Statistics South Africa the economy grew by just 2.1% in the first three months of 2008—less than half the rate of the previous quarter (5.3%) and the lowest quarterly rate in six years.

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As a consequence Turkish investments in Africa started climbing in a steadily increasing trend and are estimated to reach $1 billion in total by the end of this year.

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Though such calm is difficult to maintain while the United States experiences a panic in its many interlocking asset-backed securities markets, following years of large current
account deficits and a concurrent sell-off of the dollar against the euro, it would be a mistake to read too much into recent developments.

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The currency appreciated versus the Swiss franc, the Swedish krona and the South Korean won this week after the Fed cut the target lending rate by a quarter-percentage point on April 30 and said ``substantial'' easing since September would help foster economic growth. The euro weakened as confidence among European executives and consumers fell in April.

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Japan's Fukushiro Nukaga, China's Xie Xuren, South Korea's Kang Man Soo and Southeast Asian ministers are meeting at the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank's annual gathering in Madrid this weekend. Inflation in Asia is expected to reach a decade-high this year even as economic growth cools, ADB predicts.

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That tightness in credit could itself hit banks' assets with another round of losses, setting the stage for yet another liquidity crisis.
Investors have become more optimistic recently, and with some grounds.

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The median price of a home was down compared with a year ago, and some economists predicted home prices could keep falling for many more months given all the troubles weighing on housing, from a severe credit crunch to a rising tide of foreclosures.

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A seasonally adjusted annual rate measures monthly figures adjusted to remove normal seasonal variation and multiplied by 12 to reflect annual levels.
"Historically low mortgage rates, solid employment and income growth as well as a high level of consumer confidence continue to underpin the high level of housing starts," chief economist Bob Dugan said in a news release.

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"We all have to reconcile with the fact that the era of cheap food is over," ADB Managing Director General Rajat Nag was quoted by Kyodo as telling reporters in Singapore.

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Investors scaled back bets that some countries in the area, the world's biggest oil-exporting region, would revalue their currencies unilaterally after Gulf central bankers agreed at a meeting to step up efforts to complete a monetary union by 2010.

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Eleven months ago, on a trip to Bialystok, I found time to wipe the lager foam from my nose and write up a recommendation of Central European Distribution (CEDC). Based in Warsaw, it's Poland's largest distributor of local and imported beer and spirits. Poland, in turn, is the world's No. 2 vodka drinker and Europe's No. 4 beer drinker.

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In remarks this week, Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen and three other district- bank presidents voiced concerns about rising prices. Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein, who for almost 30 years has headed the group that decides the dates of recessions, called for an end to Fed rate cuts.

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As a followup to last October's summit of leaders of the littoral states in Tehran, the two-day meeting is unlikely to reach any substantial agreement, although it is a good warmer for a related economic summit of Caspian states to be held in Russia this summer.

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In North Korea, it has been reported, the grooming of a new leader is already underway. Nevertheless, the dynamics of relations between Russia and the two Koreas will depend not so much on personalities but on the joint efforts of the sides.
Relations between Russia and Korea in the 20th century were saturated with hopes, victories and disappointments. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) flared up precisely because of control over Korea and ended - for Russia - with the loss of South Sakhalin and ultimately the headache of the (First) Russian Revolution. The revenge of August 1945 and the joint Soviet-American occupation of Korea incurred many political problems.

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Second, referring to Kazakhstan's recent success in forcing renegotiation of terms for development of the Kashagan offshore oilfield, he has declared that state policy on the "recovery of balance of the country's interests" in "strategic objects" will be continued. Third, he announced that there would soon be created a state trust analogous to KazMunaiGaz but operating "in the sphere of solid [rather than liquid] hydrocarbons", ie mainly oriented towards coal rather than gas and oil. This trust will be created within the existing structure of Samruk Holding.

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Housing starts rose 0.4 percent to an annual rate of 1.01 million, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists before the Commerce Department's Feb. 20 report. Consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in January, a slower rate than the prior month, Labor Department figures the same day may show.

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Investors increased bets on the ECB's first cut since 2003 after the Fed lowered its rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 3.5 percent. European policy makers may now even consider a half-point reduction to spur confidence, said the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc's Jacques Cailloux.

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Ottawa is now expecting real GDP growth of two per cent to 2.2 per cent, finance department staffers told reporters Thursday. The previous estimate — from the Oct. 30 economic statement — called for 2008 growth of 2.4 per cent.

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The Senate, by a vote of 86-8, passed an energy bill that will raise fuel-economy standards by 40% and dramatically boost production of ethanol and other biofuels. But it is merely a shadow of the bill Democrats wanted just last week, which would have required utilities to get 15% of their electricity from renewable power. They also had proposed a nearly $22 billion tax package that would have allowed Congress to extend existing production and investment incentives for wind and solar power, raising money from Big Oil to help offset the spending.

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Russia is in good company. Central Bank head Sergei Ignatyev and his colleagues are the unintended victim of Washington's economic policy, along with the European Central Bank, China and most of the world, which has long relied on the United States for the key currency anchor of the international financial system in the form of a relatively stable dollar.

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The U.S. currency fell against all 16 most-actively traded currencies except Mexico's peso this week as traders raised bets that the Federal Reserve will cut borrowing costs in January. The dollar has lost 10.4 percent against the euro and 5.7 percent versus the yen in 2007, and the European currency is up 5.2 percent versus the yen, its eighth annual increase.

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