VENTURE CAPITAL POST

China needs to guarantee a "bottom line" of 6.5 percent annual economic growth for its 13th five-year-plan, a state newspaper quoted the director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Department of Planning, Xu Lin as saying.

A surprisingly aggressive dose of monetary stimulus from Sweden's central bank on Thursday injected life back into world markets which had been numbed by the stalemate in talks between Greece and its euro zone creditors.

Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras laid out plans on Sunday to dismantle Greece's "cruel" austerity program, ruling out any extension of its international bailout and setting himself on a collision course with his European partners.

The International Monetary Fund has granted Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone debt relief of about $100 million in total, the first time a global institution has provided such relief to the three West African nations hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak.

Italy is considering setting up a state-backed "bad bank" to help clean up its banking sector, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said in a newspaper interview on Sunday.

Madagascar will not achieve the 5 percent growth the International Monetary Fund has projected for it this year unless it introduces reforms to boost tax revenue and improve the business climate, an IMF official told Reuters.

After four years of economic sacrifices, Greece bet it could agree an early end to its international bailout. Instead a stand off with creditors in a Paris townhouse led to new political uncertainty and another euro zone storm.

Asian shares held firm and the euro stayed under pressure on Wednesday as investors counted on the European Central Bank to unveil a stimulus drive, while the yen was subdued ahead of the Bank of Japan's policy announcement later in the Asian day.

Shares rose on Tuesday and the dollar gained 1 percent against the yen after China said its economy had not slowed as much as many in markets had feared.

After a head-spinning bout of volatility, next week will be dominated by one question: Will the European Central Bank take the ultimate policy leap or pull its punches?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande urged Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko on Sunday to press ahead with reforms to facilitate an economic recovery and access to foreign aid.

The European Union's vaunted investment plan, due to be formally blessed by the bloc's 28 leaders at a summit this week, may be a day late and several euros short to revitalize a stagnant economy.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday he had discussed models of debt repayment to Russian state gas giant Gazprom with Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone.

Russia and Ukraine failed to reach an accord on gas supplies for the coming winter in EU-brokered talks on Tuesday but agreed to meet again in Brussels in a week in the hope of ironing out problems over Kiev's ability to pay.

A tentative agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents has raised hopes of ending a dispute in which Moscow has halted natural gas supplies to Kiev, but several obstacles still have be overcome.