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Scandinavian airline SAS has posted another quarterly loss – of 100 million euros.
The airline, which is half-owned by the governments of Sweden, Norway and Denmark,
said it was seeing signs of improving demand but was not sure when revenues will stabilise.
In March it experienced a monthly rise in passenger traffic for the first time in 19 months but warned disruptions from the Icelandic volcano will take a toll.
The International Monetary Fund says the global economy has recovered from recession more quickly than anticipated.
The IMF said emerging countries are leading the upturn with their economies expected to grow nearly three times as fast as those of developed nations.
In its latest World Economic Outlook the IMF’s forecast for global growth this year has been nudged up to 4.2 percent. Back in January the IMF was predicting growth of 3.9 percent.
Its forecast for next year is unchanged at 4.3 percent growth.
There is a strong warning from the IMF’s experts that country’s have to “urgently” get their public debt under control.
It believes the trillions spent in emergency rescue efforts have worsened public finances, leaving countries vulnerable to new shocks.
That has been illustrated by Greece’s intensifying fiscal problems and the IMF said that other countries will have to follow the same route with tax increases and spending cuts.
The euro zone can expect weak growth this year and next of around one percent.
The prediction is that only Greece’s economy will still be shrinking in 2011 as the region emerges from the recession.
Bank of America has made its first quarterly profit since last summer.
The largest US bank in terms of assets said its net income increased to $2.83 billion dollars from $2.81 billion a year earlier.
That was three times what analysts has forecast.
Much of that profit was due to strong investment banking results from Merrill Lynch.
Bank of America was widely criticised for paying too much when it controversially bought Merrill Lynch at the height of the financial crisis.
In a further sign of US economic recovery the bank said it had set aside less money to cover bad loans.
Industry observers took that to mean borrower defaults may be levelling out after rising for nearly two years.
However, Bank of America’s shares fell, along with the rest of the sector after Goldman Sachs was charged with fraud by regulators at the US securities regulators.
A Goldman vice president, Fabrice Tourre, who the SEC said was principally responsible for creating the product, was also charged with fraud.
The charges related to the structuring and marketing of a debt product tied to subprime mortgages.
The move marks a dramatic expansion of regulatory efforts to hold people and companies responsible for activity that contributed to the financial crises.
The charges hit the shares of European banks included BNP Paribas, Banco Santander, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and HSBC which ended the day down between 2.3 and 7.3 percent.
Talks between Greek officials and teams from the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund are now not likely to take place until Wednesday because of travel delays from the volcanic ash cloud.
Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker has said they will discuss the possibility of more austerity measures for Greece.
The delay in the talks caused further sell-offs of Greek assets.
Sources say EADS is close to a decision on bidding for a deal to supply air refuelling tankers to the United States.
The aerospace company’s executives were said to be meeting on Friday on whether to go ahead with a US partner to provide the electronics – the reported favourite for that role is New York based L3-Communications.
The alternative is for EADS to conserve resources for cash-hungry aircraft development projects in Europe.
There have been more signs that the economic recovery in Europe is gathered pace.
As production was cranked up last month, manufacturing activity in the euro zone grew at its fastest pace in over three years according to a survey of purchasing managers.
A jump in output and new orders in the region’s biggest economy meant German manufacturing activity hit a level not seen in almost 10 years.
France, the second biggest euro zone economy, saw factory activity expand at its best pace since November 2006.
Spain also seems to be catching up as purchasing managers there reported manufacturing in March grew for the first time since November 2007.
However economists said demand remains fragile and there was no sign of a return to growth in employment.
And British manufacturing activity grew last month at its fastest rate since October 1994.
Exports continued to benefit from sterling’s weakness versus other major currencies.
But 15 percent of firms reported job cuts and inflation remains a potential problem with companies saying they plan to raise prices.
The German car manufacturer Daimler has played down talk that it is to sell its super luxury Maybach brand to a Chinese company.
The Guangzhou Daily and other Chinese media said the firm BYD, based in Shenzhen, was ready to make a move once Maybach is put up for sale.
A Daimler spokesman said the Maybach brand is an important part the company’s portfolio.
BYD also denied the reports, saying they will work with Daimler to develop electric cars for China.
French car sales rose in March, boosted by a scrapping incentive.
They were up by 12.8 percent, adjusted to take into account the fact that March this year had one more working day than the same month last year.
For the first three months of the year sales were up 17 percent, but Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen are both forecasting a decline with the end of the scrappage scheme.
Western governments have become increasingly confident that the Beijing government will back UN sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear activities.
China is currently Iran’s leading economic partner having filled many of the gaps left by Western companies forced out by international sanctions.
One diplomat familiar with the situation has said China will probably support US proposals to blacklist banks, impose travel bans and freeze assets, but would not be happy to stop dealing with Iranian shipping companies, ban arms imports, or target oil and gas industries.
Trade between the two has grown from the equivalent of 300 million euros in 1995 to 11 billion in 2006 and 16 billion last year.
China exports weapons and imports oil and gas – 14 percent of its arms exports in the last five years went to Iran, and China’s largest energy firm recently agreed to invest 6.6 billion euros in Iranian gas and oil projects.
China has an ever increasing need for oil to power its factories.
But in the first two months of this year, Chinese imports of Iranian crude oil dropped 37.2 percent compared to the same period last year.
Experts said that is probably linked to price rather than politics.
Scandinavian airline SAS has posted another quarterly loss – of 100 million euros.
