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By ANDREW BATSON in Beijing and DEBORAH SOLOMON in Washington

A U.S. Treasury’s decision to delay making a determination on whether China is manipulating its currency could give Beijing some room to let the yuan rise in value. But some U.S. lawmakers and business groups are continuing to push for a tougher, and faster, approach.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Saturday the U.S. would delay a report to Congress on the currency policies of major trading partners, including China, citing a spate of high-level meetings between China and the U.S. The meetings, he said, “are the best avenue for advancing U.S. interests at this time.”

In a carefully worded and direct statement, Mr. Geithner said the Asian giant was relying on “currency intervention” and must move to a “more market-oriented exchange rate.” A number of lawmakers have called on the Obama administration to label China a currency manipulator in that report, saying Beijing purposefully undervalues the Chinese yuan against the U.S. dollar to give its exports a competitive advantage.

The Treasury had been due to issue its semiannual report April 15. It declined to provide specifics on when it might issue its report, or what sort of benchmarks, if any, it might seek from China over the next few months to show Beijing is sincere about moving on the yuan.

By Michael J. Moore and Rebecca Christie

March 30 (Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc.’s largest shareholder, the U.S. Treasury Department, is planning to sell its 27 percent stake this year in what could become the biggest profit for the bank-bailout program.
The Treasury will dispose of its 7.7 billion common shares of New York-based Citigroup over the course of 2010 using a “pre-arranged written trading plan,” the agency said yesterday in a statement. The Treasury’s stake had a market value of $32.2 billion as of yesterday’s closing price, for a paper profit of $7.2 billion.

The sale would finish the recovery of $45 billion given to Citigroup from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and bring the Treasury closer to President Barack Obama’s goal of recouping “every single dime” of taxpayer money put into the bank-rescue fund. Citigroup, ranked third by assets among U.S. lenders, took infusions from the $700 billion TARP fund in late 2008 as waning confidence almost triggered a run by depositors.

“This certainly puts a new and improved luster on Citi,” said David Dietze, president and chief investment strategist at Point View Financial Services, which owns Citigroup shares. “They’re still deemed a kind of ward of the government, and the mere fact that they’ll be able to dislodge this unwilling assistor underscores that they have gotten to some minimum standard of health.”

By Keiko Ujikane March 24 (Bloomberg) — Japan’s exports climbed at the fastest pace in 30 years in February as global trade recovered from the worst postwar recession, increasing prospects for a sustained economic rebound in the nation.

Shipments abroad increased 45.3 percent from a year earlier, helping the trade surplus expand the most since 1982, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. At 5.1 trillion yen ($57 billion), the value of exports remains about a third lower than the March 2008 peak of 7.7 trillion yen.

Demand for Japanese goods rose to all regions for the first time since August 2007, the report showed, fueling sales for companies from Komatsu Ltd. to Mitsubishi Electric Corp. The trade revival has spurred factory production for 11 months, gains that economist Akiyoshi Takumori expects will continue.

“Before, exports were rising mostly because of Asia, but now the U.S. economy is rebounding, too. That’s definitely a good sign,” said Takumori, chief economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “It’s very unlikely that Japan’s recovery will falter this year.”

* FTSEurofirst 300 ends flat

STOCKS

* Banks recoup some earlier losses; Greece concerns ease
* Drugmakers benefit from clarity over U.S. healthcare bill

By Harpreet Bhal

LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) – European shares closed flat on Monday, with banks paring some earlier losses as worries over Greece eased, while drugmakers largely gained after the United States passed a healthcare bill which provided clarity for the sector.

The FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares closed flat at 1,065.16 points after having traded as low as 1,052.04 points.

Banks were among the biggest fallers, but shaved losses from earlier in the session. Some uncertainty over European Union aid for debt-stricken Greece weighed on sentiment but analysts said most of the concerns had largely been factored into the market.

Barclays (BARC.L), HSBC (HSBA.L), BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA) and Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) were down between 0.2 and 1.1 percent, while Greek banks .FTATBNK slid 2.1 percent.

At the weekend, European leaders sent out conflicting signals over aid to Greece, with Germany’s Angela Merkel urging Athens to solve its debt problems alone and Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi strongly backing European Union support.

BEIJING — The International Monetary Fund warned the world’s wealthiest nations Sunday to watch their surging levels of government debt, saying it could drag down the growth needed to ensure continued economic recovery.

The economic crisis is leaving “deep scars in fiscal balances, particularly in the advanced economies,” John Lipsky, the IMF’s No 2. official, told the China Development Forum in Beijing. He said that countries that have been going into debt to stimulate their economies should now prepare for belt-tightening steps next year.

“Policymakers should be making it clear to their citizens why a return to prudent policies is a necessary condition for sustained economic health,” said Lipsky, who is the fund’s deputy managing director, according to remarks prepared for the conference.

The IMF projects that gross general government debt in the G-7 advanced economies, except Germany and Canada, will rise from an average of about 75 percent of GDP at the end of 2007 to about 110 percent of GDP at end of 2014, Lipsky said.

This year, the average debt-to-GDP ratio in the wealthiest countries is projected to reach levels that prevailed in 1950 in the aftermath of World War II, Lipsky said. The ballooning of government debt also comes amid rising health and pension spending, he said.

Google, Viacom Don’t Hold Back in Dueling Motions

By Ashby Jones WSJ

We find pretty amusing this notion that a bunch of Viacom employees secretly uploaded hordes of their own copyrighted videos to YouTube in order to bolster their copyright lawsuit against YouTube’s parent company, Google.

We have no idea if it’s true, of course, but the allegation is out there, as of Thursday.

In dueling summary-judgment motions unveiled Thursday in the long-running, heated battle between Google and YouTube, some new intriguing allegations were revealed. Among them, that Viacom that Google’s YouTube unit had sought to exploit copyrighted works for profit, and, yes, that Viacom itself had secretly uploaded copyrighted clips it later demanded YouTube remove. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the NYT story; here for Google’s summary judgment motion; here for Viacom’s SJ motion. (We’ve got a clash of the legal titans here: Google is represented by lawyers from Wilson Sonsini and Mayer Brown; Viacom is repped by Shearman & Sterling and Jenner & Block.) The case is in front of New York federal judge Louis Stanton.

A quick breakdown of the arguments:

Oil falls to near $82 after 2-day rally

Oil prices fell to near $82 a barrel Thursday, paring two days of gains that were fueled by signs U.S. crude demand may be improving.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for April delivery was down 59 cents to $82.34 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.23 to settle at $82.93 on Wednesday.
Oil had risen more than $3 the previous two days, helped higher by a larger-than-expected drop in gasoline and distillates inventories last week and a smaller-than-expected increase in crude supplies, according to Energy Information Agency data released Wednesday.
The 12-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for about 40 percent of global crude output, said Wednesday at a quarterly meeting in Vienna that it would maintain the group’s production quotas.
“OPEC ministers are fairly relaxed with the situation right now and are comfortable to float along with the positive and improving data flow,” Barclays Capital said in a report.
Some analysts said that OPEC would soon have to deal with members’ poor compliance with agreed output quotas, as they tend to produce more than their target figures.
“The cartel has to be pleased that its poor record on overall compliance has been masked by improving demand prospects,” said Edward Meir, senior commodity analyst at MF Global in New York. “However, we are entering the seasonally weaker second quarter, so the cartel may have its work cut out for it as demand starts to tail off.”
Oil prices also continued to reflect changes in the dollar’s exchange rate, with a stronger dollar pushing crude down by making the product more expensive for investors holding other currencies.
The euro fell to $1.3670 Thursday from $1.3753 late Wednesday in New York, while the British pound was down to $1.5275 from $1.5329.
In other Nymex trading in April contracts, heating oil fell 1.73 cents to $2.122 a gallon, and gasoline dropped 1.73 cents to $2.2924 a gallon. Natural gas slid 4.6 cents to $4.257 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude was down 64 cents at $81.32 on the ICE futures exchange.

U.S. jobless claims fall 5,000 to 457,000

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell by 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 457,000 in the week ended March 13, marking the third straight decline, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It was in line with expectations. The four-week average of initial claims – a better gauge of employment trends than the volatile weekly number – fell by 4,250 to 471,250. The number of people who continue to get regular unemployment checks rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 4.58 million in the week ended March 6.

Increasing pressure on the European Union, Greece may seek financial help from the International Monetary Fund over the April 2-4 Easter weekend if no detailed rescue plans are forthcoming from the EU, a senior Greek official said Thursday.

Disappointed that another round of meetings by senior EU and euro-group officials this week failed to produce concrete steps to help Athens in its scramble for funds, the Greek government is now looking with scant optimism toward an EU summit next week, the official said.

“We still want a solution within the European Union, but it doesn’t look good,” the official said. “If there is no clear support at the EU summit on March 25, we will have to decide where to go next,” he said. “There are a number of scenarios on the table, but the most prominent one is the IMF.”

The German financial ministry this week warned Greece not to expect detailed financial aid package from next week’s meeting of EU heads of government.

Prime Minister George Papandreou is “in steady contact with” IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the official added. The IMF, which has been giving Greece technical assistance on the debt crisis, has said it stands ready to help.

Europe stocks rise as S&P affirms Greece ratings

PARIS, March 16 (Reuters) – European stocks extended their gains in late trading on Tuesday after Standard & Poor’s affirmed its credit ratings on Greece’s debt.

At 1525 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares was up 1 percent at 1,062.15 points.

S&P said the Greek government’s recent deficit reduction measures were supportive of the ratings, though it said the outlook was negative, suggesting a downgrade is still likely over the long term.

European banking stocks were among the top gainers, with BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA) up 2.4 percent and Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) up 2.3 percent.

Investors were also relieved after EU finance ministers backed plans to help debt-stricken Greece financially if it needs aid. Late on Monday, ministers from the 16-country euro zone said they had agreed on the “technical modalities” that would allow aid to be quickly rolled out. [ID:nLDE62F0D9]

“Sovereign debt problems are not an issue for equities anymore. The market realised that the problems will be addressed, so Greece is not an issue at this juncture,” said Franz Wenzel, strategist at AXA Investment Managers in Paris.