STIMULUS WORK

China's annual industrial output growth slowed to 3.8 percent in January and February, the slowest pace on record and down from 5.7 percent in December, the National Bureau of Statistics said. The confidence repeatedly voiced by Chinese leaders that the economy is on the cusp of recovery has been underpinned by phenomenally strong growth in bank lending since late last year, a trend that continued in February.


With 10 months to go in 2009, China is already more than halfway towards reaching its goal of at least 5 trillion yuan in new bank lending. Finance ministers from the G20 group of rich nations and emerging powers meet this weekend in Britain to prepare for a summit in London on April 2. Ahead of the meeting, the United States and Britain called on leading economies to ramp up spending to break the recession.


But the emphasis on economic stimulus has been met coolly by many European nations, who are more focused on regulatory reform.
"What we're seeing happen around the world now is without recent precedent," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday, adding he wanted the G20 to "put in place the kind of substantial, sustained commitment to stimulus necessary to lay the foundation for recovery".
355 EX-BILLIONAIRES
Governments are pumping money into their economies and central banks have been slashing interest rates in an effort to mitigate the severity of the recession.
The Bank of Korea had cut its base rate by a total of 3.25 percentage points since early October, but on Thursday held rates steady at a record low 2 percent, saying the fall to 11-year lows of South Korea's won currency had been a factor.
South Korea said on Thursday it would spend additional $4.2 billion to stimulate consumption Asia's fourth-largest economy.
New Zealand's central bank cut interest rates by 50 basis points to an all-time low of 3 percent and said it saw the economy bottoming in mid-year.
Across the Tasman Sea in Australia, one of the few developed countries not yet officially in recession, unemployment jumped to 5.2 percent in February, its highest rate in almost four years.
"This is not good news as it is likely to dent consumer sentiment," said Scott Haslem, chief economist at UBS.
Another measure of the impact of the crisis was provided by Forbes magazine's annual survey of the world's billionaires, who have collectively seen $2 trillion wiped off their net worth.
A total of 355 people dropped off the Forbes list, with names ranging from former Citigroup chief Sanford "Sandy" Weill to alleged Ponzi scheme mastermind Allen Stanford joining the ranks of ex-billionaires.