20121214 0951 Local & Global Economy Related News.

The Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) has attracted RM12.3bn in investments and created 16,335 jobs to date, said the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA). Last year, the region attracted RM9.9bn in investments with 10,369 job opportunities. The major investments came from the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, with strong participation from the Japanese investors. Local private sector participation in the economic region grew to 39% from 19.4% last year, it said. (Bernama)

Applications for jobless benefits in the US fell by 29,000 to 343,000 in the week ended 8 Dec. Economists forecast 369,000 claims. (Bloomberg)

US producer prices lost 0.8% mom, largely pulled down by a 4.6% drop in energy prices, as food prices rose 1.3%. Stripped of those two volatile components, the rate was an increase of just 0.1%. (AFP)

US retail sales rebounded in Nov to 0.3% mom (-0.3% in Oct). Excluding automobile sales, up 1.4% after a 1.9% tumble in October, retail sales were unchanged from Oct. (AFP)

US business inventories rose 0.4% mom in Oct (+0.7% in Sep), in line with market expectations. This was the lowest rise since Jun. Business sales fell 0.4% to end three straight months of gains. The mismatch pushes the stock-to-sales ratio to 1.29 vs. Sep's 1.28. (Bloomberg)

The US Federal Reserve extended until Feb 2014 dollar swap lines with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank. (WSJ)

Euro-area finance ministers approved €49.1bn (US$64bn) of rescue payments to Greece to keep the recession-wracked country solvent, after wrapping up a 14-hour negotiation on banking union. Eurozone finance ministers brokered terms for the ECB to begin direct supervision of big eurozone lenders from early 2014. (Bloomberg, FT)

Standard & Poor's has become the third large credit rating agency to downgrade the outlook on Britain’s triple A rating to "negative". The move came because the agency is concerned by the weak recovery and delays in seeing a sufficient improvement in the public finances. (FT)

The  Thai government has started planning the 2014 fiscal budget, with a focus on reducing the budget deficit to below 2% of GDP. (Bangkok Post).

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) maintained the overnight borrowing and lending rates at 3.5% and 5.5%, respectively. It maintained its inflation target of 3-5% for 2013 and 2014, but reduced its target for 2015 and 2016 to 2-4% from 3-5%. (Bloomberg)

Credit growth in the Philippines was unchanged at 14.2% yoy in Oct. Money supply growth quickened to 8.6% yoy in Oct (7.5% in Sep). (Bloomberg)

The Bank of Korea kept the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate at 2.75% in Dec after 25 bp cuts in Jul and Oct, in line with predictions by the majority of economists. (Bloomberg)

China: First shibor jump in six quarters presages easing
Chinese banks’ borrowing costs are rising for the first time in six quarters as they raise cash before national holidays, reinforcing economists’ forecasts of a cut in lenders’ reserve requirements early next year. The Shanghai interbank offered rate, or Shibor, for three-month yuan loans climbed 17 basis points since September to a five-month high of 3.86%, according to data from the National Interbank Funding Center. India’s three-month interbank rate decreased nine basis points to 8.72%, while the equivalent cost to borrow dollars in London dropped five basis points to 0.31%, Bloomberg data show. (Bloomberg)

Canada: Yield forecasts cut most in three months in housing
Economists cut their yield forecasts for Canadian 30-year bonds by the most in three months and pushed back the date of an expected Bank of Canada interest-rate increase with the housing market showing signs of slowing. Yields in the first quarter of next year will be 2.45%, down from a forecast of 2.55% last month, according to the median estimate of nine economists surveyed by Bloomberg from 7 Dec. (Bloomberg)