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New Zealand house prices climbed for a fifth month in February, fueled by increased demand for property in the nation’s largest cities as the economy emerges from a recession.

Prices rose 5.5 percent from a year earlier, following a 4.4 percent annual gain in January, according to a Quotable Value New Zealand Ltd. index. Prices in the 17 largest cities rose 7.3 percent, the Wellington-based government valuation agency said in an e-mailed report.

Further gains in house prices may be curbed by the prospect of higher interest rates and changes to taxation of investment property that will be announced in the May 20 budget. Prices in rural areas fell in February and the pace of increases in provincial cities and some urban areas is slowing, said Glenda Whitehead, valuation manager at Quotable Value.

“Values in the last few months have flattened in many areas,” she said. “The market remains patchy and buyers cautious.”

Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard said on Jan. 28 he expected to raise the official cash rate from a record-low 2.5 percent around the middle of the year.

Property sales and listings of houses for sale improved in February as the market approaches its busiest time of the year in late summer, Whitehead said.

“We expect values to stabilize over the coming months, reflecting the ongoing uncertainty around employment, pending interest-rate rises and continued tight lending criteria,” she said. “We may see more certainty in the market after the budget announcement.”

Unemployment

Damping consumer confidence, New Zealand’s jobless rate rose to a 10-year high of 7.3 percent in the fourth quarter. Banks are taking a careful approach to lending and are requesting fresh valuations where the borrower has a low deposit, Whitehead said.

The number of home-loan approvals in the three months ended Feb. 26 slumped 20 percent from a year earlier, according to central bank figures published March 3.

A separate report prepared by the Real Estate Institute last month said that house prices fell for a second month in January. The institute releases February figures on March 12.

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Jeff Andrews tried to remain diplomatic when asked about the McGuinty government’s $7 billion green-energy deal with South Korean titan Samsung Group.

The president of Pro-Power and Energy Ltd. in Port Hope could see, on the surface, the attraction of the deal. Samsung C&T and its consortium partner, Korean Electric Power Corp., have assured four manufacturing facilities will be established between 2013 and 2015. Two will make wind towers and wind blades, the other two will assemble solar modules and inverters.

Samsung has also committed to developing 2,000 megawatts of wind power and 500 megawatts of solar power across parts of Ontario. Together, these manufacturing and power-development initiatives are expected to create 16,000 jobs over six years, welcome news during tough economic times, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Thursday.

But there’s a catch. Samsung will get 4 per cent more for the wind and solar power it produces, and it will get priority access to Ontario transmission capacity that’s in short supply. Many energy developers who have been waiting patiently for access to transmission will now have to wait a little longer.

Why, asked Andrews, is the Ontario government giving a deep-pocketed, foreign conglomerate special treatment that’s not being extended to local ventures struggling to create homegrown manufacturing and green energy?

"It’s great for Samsung, but Samsung doesn’t need it as much as we need it," he said.

Pro-Power, in partnership with CWind Inc. of Owen Sound, has been busy putting together its own consortium that aims to build wind turbine nacelles, blades and towers in Ontario. It signed a 10-year contract with auto-parts manufacturer Linamar Corp. to make the nacelles, and has established two subsidiaries, WindPro and WindBlade, to make turbine towers and blades.

This all-Ontario consortium has been attracting investors and wind developers with thousands of megawatts of projects in the pipeline are placing orders fast cash loans. Linamar is on course to make 350 nacelles a year in 2012, well before Samsung will be up and running.

"We have been working hard, digging deep and trying to get the government’s support," said Andrews. "We’ve had some response, but not as much as we think we should get. We’ve proven beyond doubt that we’re serious about it. The Ontario government needs to step up and give support to the people who have really proven they’re committed."

The Green Energy Act, passed last year, was supposed to create a level playing field, he added. Along with the feed-in-tariff program launched in September, Pro-Power and hundreds of other manufacturers and developers have been working on the assumption all are playing by the same rules.

Andrews is clearly frustrated. "We are the Ontario story. I know that sounds cocky, but we are. Our technology was developed and proven here in Ontario by Ontario residents. The patents were established here in Ontario."

McGuinty justified the deal Thursday as a way to accelerate Ontario’s green economy, by drawing an "anchor tenant" that can stimulate jobs and exports much more quickly. The alternative, he said, is to "hope" our industry of smaller players will grow over time while the province misses out on export opportunities to a U.S. green-energy market ready to explode.

Ian MacLellan, vice-chairman of solar-cell manufacturer Arise Technologies Corp. in Waterloo, said that kind of thinking doesn’t work in the long run. "If you took that approach looking back 30 years to Silicon Valley, they would have funded Xerox and not talked to Steve Jobs."

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Moviegoers have shown a willingness to be entangled by Spider-Man’s web over and over again. Now, as Disney prepares to buy the comic book powerhouse Marvel, it faces the question of whether fans will also get attached to characters as obscure as Ant-Man and Iron Fist.

The Walt Disney Co. is making a $4.2 billion bet that they will as it nears completion of its acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc. this week. The cash-and-stock deal brings those characters and thousands of others to an entertainment empire that already includes Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog and Hannah Montana.

Disney’s biggest challenge will be to get enough people enthused about second-string superheroes to justify the price — about $1.2 billion, or 40 percent more than what Marvel’s stock was worth when the deal was announced Aug. 31.

The high price means Disney will have to find new ways to earn revenue from Marvel — perhaps by bringing Marvel-licensed toys to more store shelves around the world, and by digging deep into its comic vault for potential new blockbusters.

Although Disney is constrained by the fact that big-name Marvel superheroes such as Spider-Man are already locked up in long-term deals with rival movie studios, Disney has had a history of successfully turning unknown talent such as Miley Cyrus, the actress behind "Hannah Montana," into multibillion-dollar enterprises.

"With Marvel, it’s not just about ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Hulk,’" Caris & Co. analyst David Miller said. "It’s all about the other 5,000 characters that you and I don’t even know about yet."

Disney shares are already being helped, having risen more than 20 percent since the deal was announced, partly on the hope for new character development and better use of Marvel heroes in movies, stores and theme parks.

Marvel shareholders are expected to give final approval to the offer on Thursday.

The deal has already spawned a bout of speculation in the comic book world about who will be the Next Big Thing.

Possibilities include classics such as Ant-Man, the alter-ego of mad scientist Dr. Henry Pym, and Dr. Strange, the mystical go-to guy whenever there’s an extradimensional threat. Both are connected to The Avengers line of characters that Marvel had started developing for the big screen long before Disney made the deal; Iron Man and the Hulk are among the Avengers that Marvel already has tapped.

There are about 5,000 more characters, including obscure ones such as martial arts master Iron Fist from the 1970s and up-and-coming ones such as the Runaways, a street-savvy pack of teenagers who have become a recent Marvel comic-book hit.

Whoever is the next star, Marvel has a track record of success: Its "Iron Man" movie took in $572 million at box offices worldwide despite the character once being a B-lister in the pantheon of superheroes.

"They picked the right one and they did it the right way," said Gareb Shamus, whose company Wizard Entertainment Group runs several of the Comic-Con fan conventions around the nation. "When you do that, you’ve got a franchise that could last forever."

Through the deal, Marvel gains the ability to quickly reach more markets worldwide. Disney is by far the world’s top licenser of its character brands, with $30 billion in retail sales in fiscal 2008, compared with fourth-place Marvel at $5.7 billion, according to License! Global magazine.

"It gives Marvel the opportunity to expand internationally and leverage the Disney retail relationships as well as their licensee relationships," said Tony Lisanti, the magazine’s global editorial director.

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Sweden’s central bank kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged and said it will stick to plans to leave the rate at a record low until autumn next year to support the economic recovery and reach its inflation target.

The seven-day repo rate was left at 0.25 percent, the Stockholm-based Riksbank, the world’s oldest central bank, said on its Web site today. The decision was expected by all 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

“The recovery in the economy is continuing and inflationary pressure will be low in the coming period,” the Riksbank said in its statement. Today’s decision was necessary “to attain the inflation target of 2 percent and to support the economic recovery. The recovery is from a low level and there will be ample spare capacity over the coming years.”

The largest Nordic economy’s contraction this year will be the severest since World War II, Finance Minister Anders Borg said last month. The export-reliant nation’s slump has been deeper than in neighboring Denmark and Norway after Swedish manufacturers, including the world’s biggest maker of ball bearings SKF AB and truck maker Volvo AB, cut thousands of jobs to adjust to smaller markets. Exports make up half of Sweden’s $480 billion economy.

‘Earlier’

“We still believe that the Riksbank will hike earlier than they forecast since the labor market will stabilize earlier and develop better than they predict,” said Annika Winsth, chief economist at Nordea Bank AB in Stockholm. Nordea forecasts a rate increase to 0.75 percent in April.

The krona was up 0.3 percent against the euro, after earlier having appreciated 0.5 percent, at 10.4310 at 10:19 a.m. in Stockholm. Against the dollar, the krona was up 0.4 percent at 7.1989.

The economy will shrink 4.5 percent this year and grow 2.7 percent next year, the bank forecast today. That compares with an earlier forecast of a 4.6 percent contraction in 2009 and 2.5 percent growth next year.

The central bank also revised its unemployment forecast, saying the rate will peak at 10.1 percent next year, compared with a previous estimate of 10.3 percent, and fall to 10 percent in 2011.

Unemployment

Sales abroad slumped for a 12th consecutive month in October, forcing companies to cut more jobs and threatening to send unemployment higher than the 8.1 percent rate recorded in October, not adjusting for seasonal swings. Ericsson AB, the world’s largest maker of mobile-phone networks, last week said it must continue cutting jobs and costs, affecting 946 people.

“We’re facing rising unemployment,” Borg said on Dec instant payday loans. 4. His ministry predicts the jobless rate will peak at 10.7 percent in 2010 and the economy will shrink 4.9 percent this year.

Industrial production fell for a third month in October, with the decline deepening to 2.7 percent from a 0.5 percent fall in September, Statistics Sweden data show. Industrial output sank an annual 16.1 percent in October and hasn’t grown for 15 months, according to the office.

“The Swedish economy is split in two, where industry is performing very poorly while other parts are doing better,” Winsth said. “The Riksbank focuses a lot on industry and the problems we’re experiencing there.”

Inflation Outlook

The Riksbank today said prices will fall 0.3 percent this year compared with an earlier estimate of a 0.4 percent drop. It cut its inflation expectations to 0.8 percent from 0.9 percent next year and said prices will rise 3 percent in 2011.

The recession has undermined price pressure, with Sweden posting eight months of deflation through November, the longest period of price declines since 1980, when records start. Consumer prices fell an annual 0.7 percent last month, compared with the Riksbank’s 2 percent price growth target.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s government, which is preparing for an election in September, will spend 32 billion kronor ($4.5 billion) in 2010, or about 1 percent of gross domestic product, on tax cuts and welfare to support demand. His administration came to power in 2006 promising to create jobs by reducing taxes and unemployment benefits. The government trails the opposition by 7.5 percentage points, according to an opinion poll published this month by Statistics Sweden.

Some indicators have pointed to economic improvement. Sweden emerged from recession in the second quarter and expanded 0.2 percent in the three months ended September. Stimulus measures have helped send consumer confidence higher, with the index rising to 11.4 in November from 7.5 in October, marking a fourth consecutive month of positive readings.

“The economic ground should be sufficiently solid for the Riksbank to start hiking the repo rate by the end of summer next year,” Danske Bank said in a report yesterday.

Other central banks are also exercising caution. Oslo-based Norges Bank will probably leave its benchmark rate on hold today after raising the rate a quarter point on Oct. 28 to 1.5 percent as policy makers adjust their stance to lower oil investment and the impact of a strong krone on exports.

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European Union finance ministers will give Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government until 2013 to bring Germany’s budget deficit back in line with EU fiscal rules, a draft document shows.

The German government should start reducing the budget deficit in 2011, cutting the shortfall by 0.5 percent of gross domestic product per year, according to the draft recommendation scheduled for adoption by ministers at a meeting in Brussels next week. The deficit, projected to reach 5 percent of GDP next year, should be back below 3 percent by 2013, according to the draft, which was obtained by Bloomberg News.

“In addition, the German authorities should seize any opportunity beyond the fiscal effort, including from better economic conditions, to accelerate the reduction of the gross debt ratio back toward the reference value” of 60 percent of GDP, according to the recommendation.

The document, prepared by a group composed of officials from the 27 EU nations, the European Central Bank and the European Commission, will be discussed by finance ministers at a meeting in Brussels on Dec. 1 and 2.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said he will bow to EU pressure to help strengthen the Stability and Growth Pact that was put in place to protect the euro. France has asked for an extra year to cut its deficit to 3 percent of GDP.

Merkel’s government has until June 2, 2010, to outline in detail how it intends to comply with the EU’s consolidation demands, according to the document. Merkel should enact policy measures that would help Germany’s economy grow at a faster pace in times of normal economic growth, the recommendation shows.

Economic Stimulus

EU finance ministers have committed to withdrawing economic stimulus after 2010 and to start reining in deficits that have swelled because of the recession. Germany’s budget shortfall will peak at 5 percent of GDP in 2010, and France’s deficit at 8.3 percent this year, the commission forecast on Nov. 3.

“For this government, the Stability and Growth Pact is not up for discussion and we will do everything to make sure it stays strong,” Schaeuble told reporters in Brussels on Nov. 10. To afford tax cuts promised to voters, Germany needs “a strict budget policy,” he said.

Merkel’s Cabinet on Nov. 9 approved tax cuts for 2010 totaling 6 billion euros ($8.9 billion). The measures, including expanded children’s benefits, are supplementary to about 10 billion euros in tax reductions taking effect on Jan. 1 that were approved in June by Merkel’s previous coalition.

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European exports to China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, fell 5.3 percent in the first half of the year as the euro’s appreciation made the goods from the region less competitive abroad.

The value of exports from the 27-nation European Union to China declined to 37.4 billion euros ($55.8 billion) from 39.5 billion euros in the year-earlier period, the EU’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. EU imports from China fell 8.4 percent to 102.7 billion euros, narrowing the trade deficit to 65.3 billion euros from 72.7 billion euros.

European officials have called on China to let the yuan strengthen and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will travel to China this weekend to discuss the matter cheap payday loan. The euro has gained 15 percent against the Chinese currency in the past year, fueling complaints that yuan’s peg to the weakening U.S. dollar is creating an unfair advantage for China’s exporters.

China is the EU’s second-largest trading partner, after the U.S., with machinery and vehicles accounting for about 60 percent of European goods shipped to the Asian nation. The value of German exports to China decreased to 16.2 billion euros in the first half from 16.8 billion a year earlier, according to today’s report.

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The independence of the Federal Reserve is essential for credible monetary policy and doubts about the U.S. central bank’s ability to do its job without political interference could hurt the nascent economic recovery, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Sunday.

“Talk of eroding the Fed’s independence can be counterproductive for economic recovery,” St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said in slides to accompany a presentation prepared for a panel discussion in New York.

Bullard said that non-independent central banks have historically been forced to finance large government budget deficits. “This can be very inflationary,” he added.

Last week, a U.S. congressional panel approved a measure to open the Fed’s monetary policy decisions to government audits — a surprise blow to the central bank’s efforts to shield its independence and a signal of the frustration on Capitol Hill with the central bank.

The amendment was a further congressional slap at the U.S. central bank after a Senate regulatory overhaul proposed stripping the central bank of its regulatory authority.

Some lawmakers fault the Fed for failing to anticipate or prevent the financial crisis that pitched the economy into a deep recession.

Bullard batted back criticism that the Fed missed the brewing crisis, saying the central bank provided “important warnings” before the crisis began.

He noted that his predecessor at the St. Louis Fed, William Poole, argued in the early 2000s that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “ticking time bombs,” while former Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern published a book entitled “Too Big To Fail,” warning some financial firms were growing too large for proper supervision payday loan.

“These types of warnings show that the Fed is well aware of systemic risk concerns in real time,” Bullard said in his slides.

He argued the Fed needs a role in regulating institutions to whom it may lend if required to as the “lender of last resort.”

Bullard also said that to do its job of setting monetary policy effectively, the Fed needs to know the conditions of the financial system.

“The need to know the status of financial markets has been underscored by recent events,” Bullard said. The United Kingdom’s model, in which the Financial Services Authority is in charge of regulation and the Bank of England is in charge of monetary policy “did not work well during this crisis,” he said.

“The crisis in the UK has been even worse in some dimensions than in the U.S.,” Bullard said.

He also said that despite the current crisis, the Fed’s track record of handling crises in the last 25 years has been “reasonably good.”

Bullard, who will vote on the Fed’s policy-setting panel next year, did not comment on outlook for monetary policy.

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GATINEAU, QUE.–Canadian television could get skinnier.

Some of the nation’s broadcasters are suggesting Canadians be offered a "skinny basic" package of TV channels, a smaller but cheaper version of the basic channels available today.

They made their arguments Tuesday during hearings before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, though cable and satellite providers are vehemently against the idea.

For consumers, the proposition might mean giving up channels on the current basic package and paying a low fee set by the CRTC for a smaller set of channels consisting of local, regional and some national programming.

It is one of several ideas Canada’s conventional broadcasters are offering to help their ailing industry, at a time when falling advertising revenue and the splintering of ad dollars among scores of channels have made local programming unprofitable.

"We know it can work. We know, on a cost basis, it can be done by cable companies," said Steven Guiton, chief regulatory officer at CBC/Radio Canada. "And that’s why we think it’s realistic."

When pressed for details of such a proposal, Hubert Lacroix, president and CEO of CBC/Radio Canada, said the state-owned broadcaster is holding its comments for a separate set of CRTC hearings scheduled for early December.

The CRTC’s commissioners quizzed CBC officials on the subject repeatedly, and threw questions about a basic package at officials of Bell Canada, who also appeared before the commission.

Both Monday and Tuesday, CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein seemed almost to beg the broadcasters and their rivals, the cable and satellite carriers, to negotiate a deal among themselves and come to him for approval. The carriers have refused to negotiate, saying they have nothing to gain.

The cable and satellite carriers are dead set against the idea of a smaller basic cable package. Bell Canada said its own basic service – which is larger than the one broadcasters are suggesting – is a loss-making venture that attracts few customers cash till payday.

"There’s little take-up, so what’s the point?" asked Mirko Bibic, Bell’s vice-president for regulatory and government affairs.

Rogers Communications Inc. argued a slightly different position on Monday: that a basic TV package, such as the one suggested by the CBC, would remove channels from Canadians and force them to replace them at a cost, leading to a widespread consumer backlash.

Pam Dinsmore, vice-president, regulatory, for Rogers Cable, said a "skinnier" package is a customer-friendly way of loading additional fees onto consumers.

Earlier, in a formal presentation to the CRTC, CBC/Radio Canada used the example of Quebec’s Vidéotron as a possible model. Under that system, consumers pay a cheaper rate for a more basic package and extra for non-basic, specialty channels.

CBC also argued Tuesday for the right to negotiate a fee for its local signals.

The CRTC has twice rejected proposals by broadcasters for so-called "fee-for-carriage," but is hearing from both sides in the debate for a third time.

Broadcasters including the CBC, Global and CTV are asking the federal government to step in and find a way to force cable and satellite providers such as Rogers Communications, Bell Canada and Shaw to sit down and negotiate a fee to carry local TV.

The carriers want to keep the status quo, which is profitable for them. However, broadcasters say their current business model is "broken" and losing them money as advertising declines.

If broadcasters win before the CRTC, the cable and satellite providers have said they would have no choice but to pass the cost on to consumers in the form of what they call a TV "tax."

The hearings continue until Nov. 27.

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World Bank chief economist Justin Lin said the global recovery is still “fragile” and governments should maintain fiscal stimulus measures.

“It’s important to discuss the quality of the fiscal stimulus instead of an exit,” Lin told reporters in Seoul. Measures should be withdrawn when “we see private sector investment resume as well as unemployment decline to an acceptable level. So far I think we’re still in a fragile state of the economy and maintaining fiscal stimulus is important.”

Leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, including U guaranteed online payday loans.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, pledged in Singapore two days ago to maintain stimulus policies until a “durable” economic recovery is secure.

Lin said China’s economy may grow at an annual pace of between 8 percent and 10 percent in coming years. He declined to comment on China’s currency policy.

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China should keep the yuan stable, in part because that is beneficial for a global economic recovery, a Commerce Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

The yuan’s exchange rate has little to do with its trade imbalance, spokesman Yao Jian told a news conference.

He added that it was unfair to urge just one country to increase the value of its currency, as other currencies fall in value.

Yao was speaking shortly after International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said a stronger yuan is part of the reforms that Beijing needs to implement to increase domestic consumption and help ease global imbalances.

(Reporting by Aileen Wang and Jason Subler; Editing by Ken Wills)

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