EU officials are formulating long-term budget plans that exclude Britain due to Prime Minister David Cameron's insistence he will veto any increases in real-term spending, the FT reported on Monday.

Britain is demanding a freeze to EU spending for the period 2014-20, the details of which are supposed to be thrashed out at a two-day summit of EU leaders in Brussels beginning on Thursday.

Banking giant HSBC said Monday it was in talks to sell its stake in China's Ping An Insurance Group, the country's second-largest life insurer by premiums.

The British-based but Asia-focused lender said in a statement it was "in discussions which may or may not lead" to the sale of its 15.57 percent stake, which the bank bought in 2002 before Ping An's listing in Hong Kong.

Spain's prime minister on Saturday joined its king in asking former Latin American colonies to help the EU nation overcome a deep financial crisis by channeling investments its way.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Spain had invested heavily in Latin America when it suffered a crisis 10 years ago, and now that the roles were reversed, he called upon those nations to increase their participation in his country's economy.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Saturday rejected as "unacceptable" a proposal from EU President Herman Van Rompuy to cut the bloc's 2014-2020 budget by 75 billion euros ($95 billion).

"The government does not like this budget and we have made that known to the (European) institutions and we hope that there will be another proposal that will be more reasonable," Rajoy said.

Jordan's prime minister is defending his decision to raise prices for household fuel, four days after the move sparked unrest that left one person killed and scores wounded.

Abdullah Ensour says shaky state finances forced him to take the "painful decision" to hike heating and cooking gas by 54 percent and some oil derivatives by up to 28 percent.

Billionaire Saudi Prince Walid bin Talal's Kingdom Holding investment group said Saturday it has purchased the luxury hotel Four Seasons Toronto, Canada for $200 million.

"The transaction was funded by a $130 million mortgage loan while $70 million came from (the company's) own resources," Hazem al-Dosari, a Kingdom Holding Company spokesman, told AFP.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti Saturday defended the biting austerity measures imposed during his first year in power, saying without them the eurozone might have broken up or collapsed altogether.

"Perhaps today, without the austerity measures brought in by the government, the eurozone would be no more," the premier's office said in a 17-page round-up marking one year since Monti took over leading a debt-laden Italy.

Rating firm Moody's said Friday it would review Cyprus for a possible downgrade, citing dragging bailout talks with international lenders on an aid package.

Just five weeks after its last ratings cut, Moody's said the review on Cyprus's B3 government bond rating was due to rising liquidity risks for the eurozone country, closely linked to debt-crippled Greece.

Moving to encourage reform in Myanmar ahead of a landmark trip by President Barack Obama, the United States has scrapped a nearly decade-old ban on most imports from the long-isolated nation.

The world's largest economy will open up to products from the country formerly known as Burma with the exception of gems, a sector seen as a major driver of corruption and violence.

Tough economic reforms biting hard in Jordan, which have pushed up fuel prices and triggered protests, are "a necessary pain" to meet the nation's challenges, a top U.S. official said Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is traveling in Asia, spoke this week with Jordan's King Abdullah and "commended the Jordanian government's efforts to address their economic challenges, and the king's commitment to reform," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.