VENTURE CAPITAL POST

China said on Friday that urban employment held up in the first quarter even as economic growth slowed to a 6-year low, but the labor ministry warned that authorities cannot be "blindly optimistic" as the pace of job creation is slowing.

China's annual economic growth likely slowed to a six-year low of 7 percent in the first quarter as demand at home and abroad faltered, fanning expectations that authorities will have to roll out more policy stimulus to avert a sharper slowdown.

China has a lot of room to maneuver its policy and boost its economy having avoided using strong, short-term stimulus in recent years, Premier Li Keqiang said on Sunday, in a rare suggestion that authorities can do much more to stoke growth.

U.S. airlines are expected to carry more passengers this spring than they have in seven years, Washington-based trade group Airlines for America said on Wednesday.

The International Monetary Fund has agreed to pump $10 billion into Ukraine's troubled economy over the next year, providing swift assistance for the country's struggling finances as part of a larger four-year bailout.

President Dilma Rousseff appealed to Brazilians on Sunday to back fiscal austerity policies, while saying that the belt-tightening will last as long as needed and positive results will only start showing at the end of this year.

A rare five-dollar gold piece and a prized silver dollar each could fetch $10 million or more in upcoming auctions, making the American rare coin market as attractive, though not nearly as glamorous, as fine art.

Egypt wants to attract foreign direct investments worth $60 billion and to get an average growth rate of 7 percent over the next four years, the country's planning minister said.

China's cooling growth prospects and an interest rate decision in Russia will shift the economic agenda away from the euro zone next week, although Greece remains firmly in the spotlight because of its precarious funding outlook.

Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said recent evidence suggests damage from the oil shock is hitting the economy earlier and spreading faster than anticipated, but that this could also point to an earlier rebound, the Globe and Mail reported on Friday.

Euro zone producer prices fell by more than expected in January, pulled down by plunging costs of energy, data from the European Union's statistics office Eurostat showed on Tuesday.

Japanese households cut spending further and retail sales fell for the first time in seven months in January, data on Friday is likely to show, a sign the central bank's radical stimulus has yet to convince consumers that inflation will take hold.

France's lower house of parliament approved a law on Saturday letting shops open more often on Sundays, the latest measure in the government's pro-growth bill intended to lift the sluggish economy.

European stocks dipped and low-rated bond yields rose on Monday after dismal Chinese trade data and signs of increasingly fraught relations between Greece and its international creditors kept investors cautious.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's crusade to win back investor confidence has entrusted policymakers with the tough mission of hiking interest rates while major central banks cut them, raising the prospect of another recession in Latin America's biggest economy.