S. Korea's economy grows 3.7%

S. Korea's economy grows 3.7%

SEOUL: South Korea's economy grew 3.7 percent year-on-year during
the first quarter to March, slightly weaker than expected, the
central Bank of Korea (BoK) said on Thursday.

The BoK attributed the slower growth rate to sluggish private
consumption and corporate investment amid economic uncertainty
due to the crisis over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons
programs and the spreading Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) virus.

The BoK, which had projected 3.9 percent gross domestic
product (GDP) growth for the first quarter, said it has no plans
to cut its annual growth forecast of 4.1 percent.

"First-quarter growth of 3.7 percent is lower than our latest
projection of 3.9 percent," BoK's director general Cho Sung-Jong
told a press conference.

"But it's not so bad to the point where we should change our
full-year growth forecast of 4.1 percent, projected in April."

The BoK official did not rule out another weaker-than-expected
growth figure in the second quarter.

"Second-quarter GDP, seasonally-adjusted, may fall quarter-on-
quarter too, but it's too early to tell whether it will grow or
fall as we have to look into output data further," Cho said. --
AFP

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Moneymatter-China-jobless
China's jobless shoot up 11%
JP/16/Money

China's jobless shoot up 11%

BEIJING: China's jobless have risen 11 percent over the past year
and are likely to continue to increase, state media warned on
Thursday.

At the end of March, the number of urban residents without a
job reached 7.75 million, a jump of 750,000 from one year
earlier, China Daily reported.

The result was an urban jobless rate of 4.1 percent, a rise
from 4 percent last year, the newspaper said.

China is struggling to keep its unemployment rate under 4.5
percent but the projections for the coming years do not look
promising.

Up to 23 million workers will be looking for employment over
the next three to four years, but only eight to nine million jobs
are expected to be on offer, statistics from the labor ministry
show. -- AFP

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Moneymatter-Germany-Schroeder-deficit
Schroeder expects higher deficit
JP/16/Money

Schroeder expects higher deficit

POTSDAM, Germany: The German government's budget deficit will
total around 38 billion euros (US$44 billion) in 2003, twice as
high as previously calculated, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
warned late on Wednesday.

Originally, the 2003 budget had estimated a shortfall of 18.9
billion euros, but the economic downturn has drawn a line through
those calculations as the slump eats into tax revenues and pushes
up the cost of unemployment.

Schroeder told a conference of his Social Democrat SPD party
here that the government would draw up a supplementary budget to
cover the shortfall.

Already last week, Finance Minister Hans Eichel had said the
federal budget deficit would exceed 30 billion euros this year.

The government has already said the total German public
deficit, which includes the federal, regional, municipal and
social security budgets, was expected to exceed the EU limit of
three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year. -- AFP

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Moneymatter-US-Bahrain-negotiate-trade
Bahrain to negotiate trade pact
JP/16/Money

Bahrain to negotiate trade pact

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration plans to negotiate a free
trade agreement with Bahrain as a stepping stone to a regional
free trade pact with countries in the Middle East, U.S. officials
said on Wednesday.

The announcement followed a meeting between U.S. Trade
Representative Robert Zoellick and the Gulf state's Crown Prince
Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa.

In a bid to reach out to Muslim countries following the war in
Iraq, President George W. Bush set a goal earlier this month of
creating a regional free trade agreement with Middle East
countries by 2013.

Bush administration officials said they will pursue that
effort by negotiating bilateral agreements with countries ranging
from Morocco to Iran and eventually stitching them together in a
single trade pact.

The United States already has free trade agreements with
Israel and Jordan and hopes to conclude another pact with Morocco
by the end of this year. The Bush administration hopes to begin
talks with Bahrain early next year. -- Reuters