INFLATION

India's fast moving consumer goods industry is hoping the upcoming budget will bring in concrete measures to tame spiralling inflation and viable tax structure to ensure continued growth.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's embattled government will likely boost spending on social programmes in a populist budget on Monday, even as India is threatened with a potentially ballooning subsidy bill for food and fuel.

The Gold Price rose further in London trade Thursday morning, hitting new 2011 highs for Dollar investors as Brent crude oil jumped to $119 per barrel and a raft of economic analysis warned of stagflation ahead for the global economy.

Soaring oil prices will have little impact on Chinese consumer inflation, but will place considerable cost pressure on the country's manufacturers, a government adviser and ministry official said on Thursday.

He Shuaixing shakes his head listening to the pitch from a job recruiter on a cold wet day in a factory district outside Shenzhen , epicentre of China's export machine.

Gold steadied near seven-week highs on Thursday, as investor fears over inflation stemming from the spike in crude oil were partially offset by pockets of profit-taking after the market's 6 percent rise this month.

There is now more evidence that speculators are pushing up the prices of food commodities.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia - jointly the world's biggest oil producer alongside Russia, and so far immune to the civil unrest sweeping North Africa and the Middle East - returned from hospital treatment abroad to announce a near US$38 billion package of new housing projects, a 15% pay-rise across the board, and the kingdom's first-ever unemployment insurance.

Inflation did not immediately follow because of the severity of the economic recession. However, as some economists correctly predicted, it was only a matter of time. In Europe, it's starting to heat up.

At least 100,000 trade unionists marched through the Indian capital on Wednesday in a protest against high food prices and unemployment, piling pressure on an administration under fire over corruption scandals.

Namibia's central bank kept its main interest rate unchanged at 6.0 percent on Wednesday, but said economic growth is likely to be better than previously expected as the economy recovers from a downturn.

Producer prices in Ghana rose 23.14 percent in January from a year earlier, the country's statistics office said on Wednesday, up from 17.79 percent in December.

Burundi's year-on-year inflation rate dropped to 4.8 percent in January from 6.3 percent in December partly due to lower housing, water and energy costs, official data showed on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of trade unionists, including those from a group linked to India's ruling party, marched through the streets of the capital on Wednesday to protest food prices, piling pressure on a government already under fire over graft.

Gold fell back slightly toward $1,400 an ounce on Tuesday, breaking a six-session rally, as turmoil in Libya prompted bullion investors to take profits and as sharp losses in equities and other commodities markets prompted margin selling.

China's central bank denied on Tuesday that the country has suspended plans to tailor reserve requirement ratios for Chinese banks as part of efforts to rein in rampant bank lending.

U.S. stocks recorded solid performance in the second half of the last year though the early part of the year was jittery. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 11 percent, the Nasdaq Composite gained 17 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 13 percent. Where do U.S. stocks go from here? There are analysts who think stocks are poised to show further gains this year.

South African papermaker Mondi posted a fourfold surge in annual profit, helped by recovering demand for paper and packaging, and said it would hike prices to cushion the impact of rising costs.

Nigerian Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said on Monday he did not believe that the naira was over-valued and criticised advice from the IMF, which last week recommended greater exchange rate flexibility.

South African truckers ended their week-long strike on Monday after accepting an above inflation salary increase of 9 percent, union officials and employers said.

Activity in the euro zone's private sector grew faster than expected this month, particularly in the bloc's factories, but the upturn is driving prices higher, business surveys showed on Monday.