Four Arab countries are expected this year to start witnessing major foreign investments after the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development established a one billion euro ($1.28 billion) fund, excluding Lebanon from the process for allegedly failing to ask the lending body to carry out a technical assessment on the country.

The fund’s establishment on Friday by the board of governors of the EBRD during a two-day Business Forum in London under the slogan of “Managing in Turbulent Times,” comes a year after they approved to expand the bank’s mandate following a string of popular revolts in the Arab world.

A South Korean joint venture in energy-rich Uzbekistan said Saturday it had secured a $2.5 billion credit line to build a new chemical and gas production unit by 2016.

The Uz-Kor Gas Chemical Company was formed by the Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) giant and the Central Asian state's Uzbekneftegas oil and gas company in 2008 amid surging Asia interest in the region's vast reserves.

Facebook stumbled on its first trading day Friday as shares ended barely above the starting price after a glitch-plagued market debut on the Nasdaq that failed to live up to its enormous hype.

The stock, priced at $38 on Thursday in the largest-ever initial public offering (IPO) for a technology firm, eked out a gain of just 0.61 percent to end at $38.23, amid record volume of more than 575 million shares traded.

Fears that debt-stricken Greece may be headed for a chaotic Eurozone exit loomed large as President Barack Obama met other G8 leaders for crisis talks in the United States on Friday.

The Group of Eight top economies came together as Greece faces its second election in just six weeks, putting its Eurozone future in doubt and dragging down Spain, where the government is struggling to keep its banks afloat.

World leaders will huddle at Camp David Friday with the focus on Greece as it stumbles toward an unprecedented Eurozone exit that holds wildly uncertain repercussions for the global economy.

Leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations will gather at the history-imbued U.S. presidential retreat near Washington for a two-day summit, with the dramatic denouement of Greece's economic crisis firmly at the top of the agenda.

Global demand for gold fell 5.0 percent in the first quarter of 2012 but demand in China hit record highs and outstripped that of megabuyer India, the World Gold Council said on Thursday.

Demand worldwide fell to 1,097.6 tons in the quarter ended March, worth an estimated $59.7 billion, with gold prices on average 16 percent higher than those seen in the same period last year, the council said in its latest report.

Qatar eyed Bulgaria investment opportunities on Thursday as the two countries signed a framework agreement at the start of a visit by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani to Bulgaria.

"I believe that there are viable opportunities to invest in Bulgaria," Sheikh Hamad told a press conference after signing an investment framework agreement with his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borisov, adding that the government in Sofia "interacts with us seriously and responsibly."

Rating firm Fitch downgraded Greece's credit a notch Thursday, to CCC from B-, citing political uncertainty over the country's commitment to a crucial bailout and possible exit of the eurozone.

"The downgrade of Greece's sovereign ratings reflects the heightened risk that Greece may not be able to sustain its membership of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)," Fitch Ratings said in a statement.

Chinese companies have slammed the United States as "short-sighted" and warned of a trade war after it imposed hefty duties on solar cells it said were being sold at artificially low prices.

The U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday slapped levies of between 31 and 250 percent on the Chinese solar cell producers in retaliation for the so-called "dumping".

Spain fell into recession in the first quarter of 2012 with a decline of 0.3 percent in gross domestic product (GDP), the same rate of contraction recorded late last year, official data showed on Thursday.

Final figures released by the National Statistics Institute (INE) confirmed preliminary data issued on April 30 and underscored the precarious state of the Eurozone’s fourth biggest economy as it battles 24.4 percent unemployment, a record high.