Beijing—China and Kuwait signed agreements on
oil and gas and the environment Sunday, as
Beijing pushes to deepen ties to resource-rich
countries to feed its energy-hungry economy.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and the emir of
Kuwait, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, held
brief talks Sunday and then presided over the
signing of five agreements. Among them are
agreements on energy and Kuwaiti financing for a
$24 million cleanup of polluted Bosten lake in
China’s heavily Muslim province of Xinjiang.
Dhaka —Bangladesh’s economy will grow by nearly
six percent this fiscal year with the country
escaping the brunt of the global economic
meltdown, the government forecast Sunday, but
tougher times loom. Experts said the
impoverished country would face the full impact
of the world-wide downturn in the upcoming
financial year starting in July as export
shipments keep slowing.
Riyadh—The Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC)
and the Saudi International Petrochemical Co. (Sipchem)
have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
for setting up new projects in Jubail. The two
companies will utilize their existing
infrastructure and manufacturing capacity to
process Saudi Aramco feedstock allocated by the
Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources for
the new projects.
Hong Kong—Asian currencies ended the week higher
against the dollar following the release of test
results on the health of US banks and data that
revealed the pace of US unemployment was
slowing. JAPANESE YEN: The yen edged upward
against the dollar in the past week as traders
were moving away from the safe greenback
following a largely positive assessment of US
banks and a better-than-expected report on the
US job market.
Paris—Analysts saw more green shoots poke
through the world economic freeze this week,
hailing the “stress tests” for big US banks as
an encouraging sign that a recovery was gaining
momentum. “We view the (stress test) results
highly positively,” said economists from UBS
bank in a report.
