BEIJING (AP) -- China on Tuesday rejected U.S. calls to ease currency controls and said criticism would not help efforts to end the global crisis.

A Commerce Ministry spokesman repeated Chinese complaints that Washington was acting unreasonably by expecting other countries to raise their value of their currencies in order to boost U.S. exports. The United States and other trading partners complain Beijing keeps the yuan undervalued and are pressing for it to rise.

China's top parliamentary adviser says 2010 will be critical for maintaining growth, creating jobs, and diversifying away from exports, underscoring the economy's central importance as the annual legislative session prepares to open.

Beijing declared that China had emerged from the global crisis after economic growth rebounded to 10.7 percent in the final quarter of 2009. But authorities say the global outlook is still uncertain, amid worries that a stimulus-driven torrent of lending is adding to inflation and fueling a dangerous bubble in stock and real estate prices.

(Adds context on Australian dollar in fifth paragraph.)

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Australia's central bank resumed raising interest rates after a one-meeting pause, judging that the economy is strong enough to withstand any impact from global investor concerns on sovereign-debt risks.

The biggest jobs boom in more than three years and a surge in business confidence suggest Australia's economy is already growing at or close to trend, after escaping recession during the global crisis, Stevens said. Today's decision indicated the economic figures outweighed concerns about global sovereign debt risks, which helped convince the RBA to stand pat last month.

China's export growth accelerated in January and imports rose, adding to signs a recovery in global and Chinese demand is on track.

January exports rose 21 percent from a year earlier, up from 17.7 percent growth in December, customs data showed Thursday.

Imports skyrocketed by 85.5 percent due to being compared with a period last year when companies were idled for the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday. The holiday this year falls in February.

Oil prices hovered near $78 a barrel Thursday in Asia after China, a top oil consumer, declared it has recovered from the global crisis, allaying concerns over its recent crackdown on bank lending.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was up 1 cent at $77.75 a barrel at late afternoon Kuala Lumpur time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.58 to settle at $77.74 on Wednesday.

HONG KONG – Most Asian stock markets dropped Thursday after China's economy surged last quarter, adding to worries about Beijing's ability to prevent overheating without derailing the recovery.

Major markets were down by less than 1 percent, following sharp losses on Wall Street. Oil prices rose while the dollar gained against the yen and euro.

China, declaring itself the first country to recover from the global crisis, said its economy grew 10.7 percent in the fourth quarter and 8.7 percent for all of 2009, blowing away forecasts.

BEIJING -China declared Thursday it has recovered from the global crisis after fourth quarter growth jumped to 10.7 percent. But inflation picked up, adding to pressure on Beijing to prevent overheating and keep its economic recovery on track.

Analysts said it is time for Beijing to start winding down its stimulus and focus on controlling inflation. Quarterly growth exceeded most forecasts and raised 2009's expansion to 8.7 percent, up from a low of 6.1 percent in the first quarter.

Financial chiefs from the Group of Eight industrialized nations yesterday offered their most optimistic assessment yet of the global crisis, noting encouraging signs of economic stabilization and calling for an "exit strategy" from the policies that have been used to stimulate growth around the world.

Following two days of meetings in Lecce, Italy, the eight finance ministers -- including U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia -- also agreed to create "a set of common principles and standards governing the conduct of international business and finance."

WARSAW, June 5 (Reuters) - Latvia's economic crisis risksspilling over into other countries in eastern Europe and theinternational community needs to provide more support for thesmall Baltic state, a Polish central banker said on Friday.

Latvia, its economy badly hit by the global crisis, isstruggling to avoid a currency devaluation that would hammerheavily exposed Swedish banks and reignite worries over thewider region's prospects.

SANTIAGO, May 7 (Reuters) - Chile's consumer price indexposted a surprise fall in April while the trade surplus came inbetter than expected, data showed on Thursday, seen paving theway for a new central bank interest rate cut later in the day.

The 0.2 percent CPI drop compared to a median forecast fora rise of 0.2 percent expected by eight economists and analystspolled by Reuters, and to a 0.4 percent rise in March. In April2008, consumer prices rose 0.4 percent.

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- The European Commission cut itsforecast for the euro-area economy and now expects a contractiontwice as deep as it projected just three months ago as financialmarkets “remain under stress” from the global crisis.

The economy of the 16 countries sharing the euro willshrink 4 percent in 2009 and 0.1 percent in 2010, the Brussels-based commission, the European Union’s executive, said today,revising a January estimate for a contraction of 1.9 percentthis year. The region’s average budget deficit will swell to 5.3percent of output this year and unemployment will rise to 9.9percent, the commission said.

* ADB annual meeting told of regional challenges from crisis

* Meeting begins after $120 bln Asia crisis fund announced

* Fund is Asia's first independent multilateral facility

* ADB to ramp up lending after donors hike capital (Updates with comments and details from opening)

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, May 4 (Reuters) - Indonesia's president acknowledged on Monday the political, social and environmental challenges in Asia posed by the financial crisis after the region agreed on a $120 billion emergency fund to counter the downturn.

Reporting from Santa Barbara -- The Dalai Lama, in a ringing denunciation, declared Friday that the ailing global economy is the result of "too much greed, and lies and hypocrisy."

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The top economic officials of the world's seven biggest nations said they were taking the necessary steps to get the global economy back on track and that growth should begin to recover later this year.

The Group of Seven leaders said that their steps have supported growth and restored confidence in the financial system and flow of credit.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed the optimism, saying that the global economy looks a little better recently but that it is way too soon for any victory laps.

(Adds more comments from ADB officials on China's economic outlook in 2009.)

BEIJING (Dow Jones)--The Asian Development Bank said Tuesday it cut its forecast for China's economic growth this year to 7%, because the impact of the global financial crisis on the country has been much worse than previously thought.

The Manila-based development bank had forecast the world's third-largest economy would grow 8.2% in 2009 in its semiannual Asia Economic Monitor report that it issued in December.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The World Bank lowered its forecast for China's 2009 economic growth on Wednesday but warned Beijing that it would be thwarting its own medium-term goals if it tried to offset the slowdown by further boosting investment.

In a quarterly economic update, the bank cut its projection of gross domestic product growth this year to 6.5 percent from the 7.5 percent outcome it had forecast in November. It said there were both upward and downward risks to its outlook.