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Switzerland Lowers Growth Forecasts

Setbacks for recovery of the eurozone economy are affecting Switzerland which cut its own growth forecasts on Thursday.

The national statistics agency cut its growth outlook for 2014 from 2.0 to 1.8 percent.

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Merkel Says EU, 'all Members' Must Enforce Debt Rules

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday she was confident that the European Union would enforce its own budget rulebook with debt sinners, as France faced a reckoning in Brussels.

Speaking to parliament, Merkel noted the entire EU had signed up to the Stability and Growth Pact regulating fiscal discipline.

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Central Bank: China Bank Lending Picks up in September

China's banks stepped up their lending in September, the central bank announced Thursday, but analysts said more monetary easing was needed to bolster the weakening economy.

Domestic banks extended 857.2 billion yuan ($139.9 billion) in new loans, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) said in a statement, up more than a fifth from the 702.5 billion yuan lent in August.

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Cash-Strapped France Announces Major Defence Cuts

France on Wednesday announced major cuts in defense spending, including the scrapping of an artillery regiment and the loss of 7,500 jobs, as the country battles a ballooning budget deficit.

"In 2015, 7,500 jobs will be cut. The defense ministry will take part in the nation's efforts to improve its budgetary position," Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said

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Airbus Signs Draft Deal to Sell 250 Planes to India's IndiGo

European giant Airbus said Wednesday it had signed a draft deal to sell 250 of its next-generation A320neo planes to India's IndiGo, in what could be its biggest contract ever in terms of aircraft numbers.

The low-cost Indian operator is already a loyal Airbus customer, having previously ordered 280 planes from the European firm, and the latest agreement is worth around $25 billion (20 billion euros) at list prices.

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French Bank Allows Clients to Tweet Money

Money is now only a tweet away for French people, after a bank in the country on Tuesday launched a novel way to transfer money on the social networking platform.

Twitter users can link their accounts to the BPCE banking group's money-sharing application S-Money and fire off a tweet tagging the person they want to receive the money with the amount and hashtag #envoyer (send).

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German Inflation Stuck at 0.8% for Third Month in a Row

Inflation in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, remained stuck at an ultra-low level for the third month in a row in September, final data showed on Wednesday.

Confirming to a flash estimate released at the end of September, the federal statistics office Destatis calculated in final data that German inflation stood at just 0.8 percent year-on-year last month, unchanged since July.

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Saudi Billionaire to Join Euro Disney Bailout

Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal will join a financial bailout of the money-losing Euro Disney theme park, his Kingdom Holding Co said Tuesday.

"Yes we are confirming the story. At this moment there is nothing more to add," a company official told AFP in Riyadh.

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Eurozone Industrial Production Falls Sharply in August

Industrial output in the eurozone fell by 1.8 percent in August, official data showed on Tuesday, a steep drop and another sign that recession in the 18-nation currency bloc could return.

The fall in factory output data was a reverse from the previous month, when an unexpected one-percent rise in industrial activity brought hope that a fragile recovery in the eurozone could be taking hold.

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Singapore Economy Returns to Growth in Third Quarter

Singapore's economy returned to growth in July-September, reversing contraction in the previous three months, owing to a pick-up in the city-state's key manufacturing sector, the government said Tuesday.

Compared with the second quarter, gross domestic product expanded 1.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, advance estimates by the trade ministry showed. GDP shrank 0.1 percent in the three months to June.

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