Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

European officials say Spain is poised to seek billions of dollars in bailout money from other countries in the euro currency bloc to rescue its distressed banks.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke Thursday told Congress that the Fed alone can't put Americans back to work as the economy needs fiscal policy intervention too.

Jitters about Spain's financial crisis eased slightly after Madrid raised roughly $2.62 billion from a bond-market sale, although at high interest rates. But there are more worrying signs for the eurozone, including a rise in French unemployment.

LONDON Majority of Britain's Clinton Cards and Birthdays stores have been sold by the administrator to Ohio-based American Greetings, which was Clinton Card's biggest supplier, in a 24 million pounds deal, and in the process saved around 4,500 jobs.

BEIJING Striving to give faltering the economy a boost, China's central bank Thursday not just cut borrowing cost, the first since December 2008, but also gave banks additional flexibility to set competitive lending and deposit rates in what is seen as a move towards liberalization.

Britain has welcomed the European Commission move towards setting up a common "banking union" across the eurozone as a "positive step in tackling the problem of 'too big to fail' in the banking sector", but is not keen to be a part of the exercise.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded six banks in Germany and three in Austria amid the escalating economic crisis in the Eurozone.

Premium drinks group Diageo is planning over 1billion pounds investment to scale-up its Scotch whisky production over the next five years to meet growing global demand and in the process create more jobs in the UK.

Business confidence in the economy plunged in May as the UK companies strived to come to terms with developments in the crisis-hit eurozone, a survey report released Wednesday revealed.