Euro wobbles as finance ministers meet
BRUSSELS, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- The euro dipped to a near nine-month low against the dollar Monday as European financial ministers met to discuss Greece's national debt.
European Union leaders had said the stronger economies of Europe would offer support for Greece, where government debt has helped undermine confidence in the international currency. But leaders left it up to finance ministers to work out the details, The Times of London Online reported.
The euro fell to $1.36 before regaining some strength to $13612.
Although Germany and France pledged to help, Greece is resisting pressure to further raise sales taxes and cut wages for government employees. The country is already implementing austerity measures with the aim of shrinking debt to 8.7 percent of the gross domestic product from the current 12.7 percent.
Prime Minister George Papandreou's announcement of a three-year pay freeze for government employees has already triggered union protests.
Papandreou said Greece had become "a guinea pig in a battle between Europe and the international markets."
GM court fees total $90M, so far
NEW YORK, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Lawyers, not creditors, are profiting from the liquidation of General Motors assets left behind in U.S. bankruptcy court, a law professor said.
"The money paid to the professionals comes directly out of the pockets of creditors. There clearly is going to be a very small amount of money left for any creditors," said Lynn LoPucki, a law professor at Harvard and UCLA, The Detroit News reported Monday.
The bill for professionals in the case has reached $90 million and is likely to surpass the $1.17 billion in debtor-in-possession financing the government gave GM to help it unload the unprofitable factories and other assets it shed during bankruptcy proceedings last summer.
The fees were so complicated, the court approved hiring a consultant to sort through the legal and consulting bills. That consultant, Brady Williamson -- a $495 per hour consultant -- in turn, recommended hiring his law firm, Godfrey & Kahn, S.C., and later asked the court to spend as much as $85,000 on another consultant, the News said.
Chinese economy to be restructured
BEIJING, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Expanding domestic demand and reducing reliance on exports will be part of the Chinese government's economic restructuring this year, state media said.
A report by the official Xinhua news agency Monday said the world's third largest economy will become a "real tiger" as the country heralds the Chinese new lunar Year of the Tiger.
The country faces mounting international pressure to appreciate its undervalued currency, which experts contend is giving China an unfair trade advantage.
The report said authorities have made the task of restructuring the economy a priority as called for by President Hu Jintao in early January.
The report quoted Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is likely to succeed Wen Jiabao as the next prime minister in 2012, as saying China has entered a critical period when adjusting the nation's economic structure is the only approach to advancing its sustainable development.
At last month's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Li stressed the need to boost domestic demand and transform the current development model "that is excessively reliant on investment and exports."
"After having sustained the nation's fast economic growth for more than two decades, the weaknesses of China's export-led growth model were revealed with the onset of the global economic recession, which originated in the U.S.," the Xinhua report said.
The report quoted analysts as saying that China cannot rely on exports for growth as much as it used.
Japan's stays second-largest economy
TOKYO, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Japan's higher-than-expected economic growth in the last quarter of 2009 allowed it to retain its place as the world's second-largest economy, ahead of China.
Data from Japan's Cabinet Office Monday showed the economy, aided by higher exports and rising domestic demand, grew at an annual 4.6 percent during the October-December quarter, giving the country a gross domestic product of $5.27 trillion in 2009, against China's $4.9 trillion.
Japan has been in second place, after the United States, since 1968 but China is expected to soon replace Japan as the world's second-largest economy in GDP terms. The U.S. GDP exceeds $14 trillion.
The report said the Japanese economy is recovering from its worst post-war recession caused by the global financial crisis which hit exports hard crisis and the yen to appreciate.
"Everyone (in Japan) knows that China will soon overtake us; it's a country with 10 times the population as Japan and a growth rate of about 10 percent," Masamichi Adachi, senior economist for JP Morgan in Tokyo told CNN. "(Japan's economic growth) is just flat, sluggish, and has been that way for the last two decades."
