Warning on budget deficit

BRUSSELS: The European Union head office pressed ahead with its budget policing duties on Wednesday, calling for a warning against Italy, even as it urged a court to restore authority lost when France and Germany blocked punishment for their large deficits. — AP

Retail sales fall in Japan

TOKYO: Japanese retail sales fell by 2.3 per cent in March from a year earlier, reversing a 1.8 per cent increase in February. The data also showed sales at large-scale retailers slipped by 4.7 per cent in March after increasing by 0.5 per cent in February for the first rise in four months. — AP

Oman, UAE plan JV

ABU DHABI: State-run Oman Oil Company (OOC) and its partners in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) plan to form a shipping company to transport petrochemical products from the Gulf region. The OOC will establish Gulf Energy Maritime Shipping Company (GEM) with Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) and International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), both of which are UAE firms. — HNS

Aussie inflation at lowest

CANBERRA: Inflation in Australia has slowed to its lowest level in more than four years. The prices rose by 0.9 per cent in the three months to the end of March, slightly higher than market expectations of a 0.8 per cent rise. The result took the annual inflation rate down to two per cent, the lowest level since December 1999, and a sharp drop from 2.4 per cent for the year to the end of December. — AP

Schroeder welcomes FI

BERLIN: German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder welcomed plans by Abu Dhabi to take a stake in carmaker Volkswagen AG. Last week, Volkswagen chief Bernd Pischetsrieder said the emirate has an interest in becoming a shareholder over time by buying as much as 10 per cent of the of the company’s shares. — AP

Call for price control

WASHINGTON: The US needs to expand the global trade in natural gas as a way to prevent future sharp price increases from harming its economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said. He said a dramatic rise in recent years in the price of both oil and gas for delivery six years into the future was almost certain to have an impact on the US economy. But he said the impact was likely to be greater for users of natural gas because they had no global supply to cushion price increases. — AP

Snow meets IMF nominee

WASHINGTON: US treasury secretary John Snow met with former Spanish finance minister Rodrigo Rato, and discussed Iraqi reconstruction, global economic conditions and the Spanish economy. Rato is one of the two leading candidates for the IMF chief. The IMF said that the finalists were Rato and Mohamed El-Erian, an Egyptian who is a prominent bond-fund manager. But the voting next week will decide the new managing director of the 184-nation

lending organisation. — AP

AirAsia to fly to HK

HONG KONG: Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia has picked Macau over Hong Kong as its first destination in China and plans to launch services in June. AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes said that his company looked into Hong Kong flights, but Macau aviation officials were “just more hungry” and struck a better deal. — AP