British Prime Minister David Cameron faced a frosty reception from the global elite at the annual Davos meeting on Thursday after his vow to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

The World Economic Forum in the snowy Swiss ski resort will see top politicians and business leaders pursue talks on whether they have seen the back of the global financial crisis.

Commerzbank, Germany's second-biggest bank, said on Thursday it is looking to axe 4,000-6,000 jobs -- or about 10 percent of its workforce -- by 2016.

"As part of our strategic agenda announced in November, Commerzbank is planning to invest more than 2.0 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in core operations, as well as cost savings," a bank spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

Problems which have grounded all Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft will not affect programs by EADS, the parent company of Airbus which is developing its A350 airliner, EADS director of strategy Marwan Lahoud said on Wednesday.

Lahoud, questioned on Radio Classique about possible knock-on effects of Dreamliner problems, said that "they will not have an impact on our programs" and that the first examples of the Airbus A350 long-range airliner would be made as planned at the end of 2014.

Portugal launched on Wednesday its first medium-term debt issue since receiving an international bailout in May 2011, making the critical step of returning to the borrowing markets much quicker than expected.

According to several business media, the five-year bond issue, the first since February 2011, began early on Wednesday with the target of raising 2.0 billion euros ($2.7 billion).

The world's political and business elite gather in the snow-covered resort of Davos from Wednesday, aiming to instill some confidence in the global economy amid tentative signs of recovery.

Some 45 world leaders will rub shoulders with around 2,500 lobbyists, journalists, captains of industry and economists in the picture-postcard Swiss ski resort for the five-day annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Google eked out slightly higher earnings in the fourth quarter, despite a financial drag caused by the Internet search leader's expansion into device manufacturing and a decline in digital ad prices as more people gaze into the smaller screens of smartphones.

The results announced Tuesday pleased investors, helping to lift Google's stock by nearly 5 percent in extended trading.

Arab leaders pledged to remove obstacles to finalizing a free trade zone this year and agreed to facilitate capital flows, as they wrapped up an economic summit in Riyadh on Tuesday.

"We stress our determination to complete all the prerequisites of (forming) the free trade area before the end of this year," Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said at the end of the third Arab Economic and Social Summit.

Kuwait MPs Tuesday overwhelmingly ratified a settlement deal between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi national carriers under which Baghdad will pay $500 million in compensation, ending a 22-year-old dispute.

Under the deal reached in July, Iraqi Airways agreed to pay the said compensation to state-owned Kuwait Airways Corp. (KAC) for damages caused by the then Iraqi troops of Saddam Hussein during the 1990-91 invasion of Kuwait.

Portugal has asked eurozone finance ministers to extend the life of bailout loans to help it to borrow normally, Portuguese Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar was reported as saying by media in Lisbon.

Gaspar said after a meeting of the Eurogroup of finance ministers in Brussels on Monday that Portugal had shown it was carrying out bailout conditions and that it was "ready to launch issues on the primary bond market," the reports said.

The British government said on Tuesday that it was continuing to explore the sale of its one-third stake in British-based uranium enrichment specialist Urenco.

"Work is continuing ... on a possible sale but no final decision has been made on the future of the government's one-third stake in Urenco," said a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).