CHINA

Dutch consumer electronics giant Philips Electronics on Monday said it would divest its struggling television business as first-quarter net profit came in below expectations.

There will be a little less money to go around in China starting later this week. China's government is worried about rising prices and is tightening its grip on the country's cash. In the latest step, the country's banking authorities have told banks that they must raise the amount they set aside in their reserves another half a percentage point, effectively reducing lending.

The Australian stock market fell, to record the first weekly decline after three of gains, as the prospect of further interest rate hikes in China saw investors err on the side of caution.

The U.S. economy appears to be running dangerously close to stall speed, and the rest of the world may not have enough oomph to compensate.

China's yuan is close to being a freely usable currency, one of two key tests for it to be included in the International Monetary Fund's currency basket, the deputy governor of China's central bank said on Sunday.

International Monetary Fund member countries sought to bridge sharp differences over the global economy, acknowledging that rising inflation in emerging markets poses a risk to rich countries too.

China raised banks' required reserves on Sunday for the fourth time this year, extending the fight against excessive liquidity and stubbornly high inflation in the world's second-largest economy.

The International Monetary Fund should offer recommendations for national policies that spur excessive flows of capital into other economies as well as policies that seek to temper them, the IMF's steering committee said on Saturday.

Nearly a decade worth of work to reach a world trade deal is on the verge of failure, World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy said on Saturday in a plea for countries to rise above their own narrow interests for the good of the global economy.

IMF member nations, acknowledging resistance from emerging markets to limits on capital controls, said rich nations' policies that spur large capital outflows that could harm other economies also need oversight.

Developing countries on Saturday pushed back hard against attempts to restrict how they manage money pouring into their fast-growing economies and said rich nations should reconsider their own policies instead.

Russia is looking to the experience of other countries, including China, to regulate Internet use, though Moscow has no plans to broaden web censorship, a government spokesman said on Saturday.

Leading world economies agreed on Friday to put the policies of seven major nations under a microscope as part of a plan to prevent a repeat of the global financial crisis.

China's monetary policy tightening will continue for some time as inflation remains higher than the government is comfortable with, and the yuan will be one of the tools used to fight it, the central bank governor said on Saturday.

Chinese firms and government bodies need to accelerate a shift toward value-added products to seek a better balance in trade, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan said in comments published on Saturday.

China plans to support its integrated circuit sector as a strategically important industry over the next five years, aiming for over a fourth of microchips used in the country by 2015 to be made in China, Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.

China's monetary policy tightening will continue for some time as inflation remains higher than the government is comfortable with, and the yuan will be one of the tools used to fight it, the central bank governor said on Saturday.

Europe is likely to be hit the hardest among major economies by a potential global slowdown in 2012, but China's $300 billion sovereign wealth fund is still looking for investment opportunities there, its head said on Saturday.

China's monetary policy tightening will continue for some time because inflation remains higher than the government is comfortable with, with the yuan being one of the tools used, the country's central bank governor said on Saturday.

China's largest social network, Renren, filed for a U.S. initial public offering to raise up to $573.1 million, the first of a clutch of Facebook clones hoping to boost their profile with an American listing.

A transcript of Obama's speech