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BAGHDAD — Iraq's prime minister called on Thursday for "patience" while the government implements economic reforms that include restructuring of many state-owned companies, saying the plan would deliver growth and development.

Haider Al Abadi, who took office in September after Islamic State (IS) militants seized control of large parts of north and west Iraq, is under pressure to improve economic and security conditions while navigating a polarised political landscape.

Iraq is struggling to attract foreign investment and diversify its revenue sources away from oil, the price of which plunged in the second half of last year.

"We call on citizens to be patient. Success and development are coming," Abadi told an investment conference in Baghdad. "If we stick to the reform plan, soon there will be economic breakthrough."

Abadi said the government aimed to restructure some state-owned companies although he did not say which, when changes would happen, or whether it would entail privatisation.

"We want these companies to be more efficient and contributive to the Iraqi economy," he added. "The government has no intention to get rid of the workers in these companies."

Many state firms have barely functioned since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003 and many related to the military have been shut down.

Iraq's economy, which gets about 90 per cent of its revenues from oil, was battered last year by plummeting global oil prices and the land grab by IS which prompted big spending on the military and displaced populations.

Defence alone is expected to take up 20 per cent of 2015 spending in a budget passed by parliament last month which includes a deficit of 25 trillion dinars ($22 billion) to be financed through borrowing.

The government also has to ensure more than 5 million state employees are paid.

Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari has said Iraq plans to use its Special Drawing Rights to raise financing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

A senior IMF official told Reuters the financial institution was open to providing additional funding to the war-torn nation.

"They certainly could [ask for more money]. So far they haven't... We had a programme before with Iraq. It's their call," the official said.

When extending emergency loan programmes to countries, the IMF has often pressed them to introduce economic reforms such as restructuring state finances.

AMMAN — Jordan's inflation edged down by 0.4 per cent at the end of January this year, according to the Department of Statistics  (DoS) report.

The slight decrease was attributed to the decline in prices of transportation, fuel, electricity tariffs, vegetables, beans and beverages, the DoS report, sent to The Jordan Times, said.

Prices of rentals, cigarettes, fruits, poultry and meat rose during Januray, the report added. As of Januray 2015, the department recalculated the inflation rate based on 2010 prices as the reference year and not 2006, in line with the international indicators. 

TRIPOLI — Libya's electricity grid is struggling to keep going as a shortage of power and gas for generation and its break up under two governments hit supply.

Residents in the two main cities Tripoli and Benghazi say they have been coping for days with outages lasting 10 hours or longer. Mobile phone coverage in parts eastern Libya broke down this week due to a lack of electricity.

"The network has been broken up in separate regions which has a negative impact, is leading to instability and cases of total blackouts," Libya's state electricity firm said on its website.

It gave no details but officials have complained that power plants have been hit or become inaccessible due to nearby clashes.

Some plants such the one in Hun in central Libya have stopped working due to insecurity, the firm added.

Libya had tried overhauling the grid but a departure of foreign partners for security reasons made the completion of projects impossible, the company continued, without giving details.

Oil production has fallen to around 350,000 barrels a day, a  fifth of levels seen in 2013 as major export ports stopped working in the past few months due to nearby fighting.

Gas output has also fallen sharply since the Es Sider port, Libya's biggest, and its connected fields shut down in December when a force allied to the Tripoli government tried to seize the terminal.

Foreign firms have become reluctant to deal with Libya. Last week, gunmen stormed the Al Mabrouk oil field, kidnapping three Filipinos and killing around 10 people, officials have said.

Separately, a top official said Libya will exhaust its wheat reserves in two or three months unless a state fund tasked with ensuring supplies receives money held up as a result of the political turmoil gripping the country and a slump in oil revenues.

Neither side, the recognised government holed up in the east since losing the capital in summer or a rival outfit now running Tripoli, has prepared a budget for this year. Both are busy fighting for territory, oil facilities, and control of the central bank and the country's vital oil revenues.

Wheat imports have been disrupted by fighting between the rival factions. Air strikes on the western port of Misrata have made shippers reluctant to deal with Libya, while local banks suffer from a dollar shortage due to a slump in oil revenues.

As a result, Libya has been forced to halve flour supplies to bakeries to 65,000 tonnes a month. Despite this, the country's wheat reserves will run out within a maximum of three months without fresh supplies.

Jamal Al Shibani, head of the state Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF), which provides finance for mills importing wheat, played down talk of a crisis, but told Reuters there was a shortage of flour. 

"We have flour security for one month and we have wheat reserves which I expect to last until the start of April," he indicated.

In an indication of the difficulties of bringing in imports, a state agency has been trying for three weeks to buy 50,000 tonnes of milling wheat and 25,000 tonnes of rice but payment issues have prevented a deal, European traders have said.

A budget crisis has undermined the funding of imports. The  power struggle has knocked out almost all oil fields. Oil exports, Libya's lifeline, have fallen to around 200,000 barrels a day — a fifth of the levels seen in 2013.

Obligations 

Shibani said the central bank, which is limiting spending as oil receipts decline, had stopped transfers to his fund, leaving it with obligations of more than 3 billion dinars ($2.2 billion) owed to millers or wheat importers.

For three months the PSF had been waiting for the release of 200 million dinars as a short-term financing facility.

"If our financial obligations are not met, [wheat] reserves will run out in two or three months," he added. "We know that Libya, the state, cannot pay everything [but] there are bank obligations. The obligations need to be paid in tranches."

State-owned Matahan, a Tripoli-based mill which buys wheat abroad, said it had received a shipment of 25,000 tonnes of wheat from Hungary this week, with another cargo expected later this month.

But Chairman Mustafa Abdul Majid Idris said the state had failed to guarantee 32 million dinars it had opened as a letter of credit. Its bank was now threatening to charge interest should it fail to come up with the funds. 

The mill has debts of 173 million dinars due to unpaid state bills.

With no fresh money arriving, Shibani has become a crisis manager on all fronts. He spent hours on Monday meeting African storage workers, who are on strike because they have not been paid since October.

"Our accounts have been completely frozen but I managed to persuade them to return to work," he said. But a Reuters reporter visiting a flour storage facility on Tuesday saw the workers still refusing to unload almost 20 trucks. "We'll work when we get paid," one worker told a manager pleading with them to resume work.

Shibani said there was no bread crisis. Loaves are  available, although some bakeries in Tripoli and Benghazi have closed while those still working produce less bread.

The biggest headache for authorities is that Libya has probably the world's highest bread consumption. A loaf is sold for 2 cents, a legacy from the time of Qadhafi, who wanted to buy loyalty by subsidising basic food items.

Each Libyan consumes 15 kilogramme of flour a month. "The closest runners-up are countries with a consumption of five or six kilogrammes," Shibani indicated.

Libyans are used to buying plastic bags full of bread, much ends up in garbage bins or is used as animal feed. Even worse, bread subsidies are a major source of corruption.

Traders smuggle trucks full of flour to southern neighbours Niger and Chad. "They do not need to import any wheat," said Idris.

Libyan officials have been saying for years that the subsidy system is too expensive, but with armed groups effectively running the country nobody dares to touch it.

Shibani also said imports of sugar, macaroni and other subsidied products had stopped, although stocks were available.

DUBAI — Standard and Poor's (S&P) has lowered the outlook for the world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia to negative and downgraded its Gulf partners Oman and Bahrain on sliding oil prices.

But despite the large budget deficit planned by Riyadh for this year, the agency maintained its sovereign credit ratings for the kingdom, as well as neighbouring Abu Dhabi and Qatar, citing their "very strong fiscal positions”.

"Given its high dependence on oil, Saudi Arabia's currently very strong fiscal position could weaken owing to the oil price decline," S&P said in a statement on Monday.

"The negative outlook reflects our view that Saudi Arabia's general government fiscal position is weakening," it added.

S&P lowered its outlook for Saudi Arabia from positive to stable in December citing similar reasons.

The agency has since further lowered its projections for world oil prices.

In December 2014, S&P expected benchmark Brent North Sea crude prices to average $80 per barrel in 2015 and $85 a barrel in 2015-2018.

"We now assume an average Brent oil price of $55 a barrel in 2015 and $70 a barrel in 2015-2018," it indicated.

Unlike Saudi Arabia, the neighbouring United Arab Emirates (UAE) expects to balance its budget this year, and S&P maintained its "AA/A-1+" ratings and stable outlook for Abu Dhabi.

It said it expected the emirate, which accounts for 90 per cent of UAE crude output, to remain prudent and flexible in its fiscal policy.

"But we also anticipate structural and institutional weaknesses to remain," it added.

Gas-rich Qatar has yet to unveil its budget for this year but S&P maintained its "AA/A-1+" sovereign credit ratings and stable outlook for the emirate.

The smallest Gulf producers, non-OPEC Bahrain and Oman, which lack the fiscal reserves of their wealthier Gulf partners, both saw their ratings downgraded one notch.

Bahrain's sovereign credit ratings were cut to "BBB-/A-3" from "BBB/A-2" and Oman's to "A-/A-2" from "A/A-1”.

World oil prices plunged more than 50 per cent last year and have since rebounded only feebly, amid forecasts of weak growth in key consumer countries and a continuing, if reduced, boost to supply from North American shale producers.

The International Monetary Fund estimated last month that the six Gulf Arab states — which also include Kuwait — would suffer $300 billion in lost revenues this year because of the price slump.

AMMAN  — Czech President Milos Zeman on Tuesday proposed helping the Kingdom in defence, energy and renewable energy projects as well as tourism. 

Addressing the closing session of the Jordanian-Czech Business Forum, Zeman said such cooperation can be achieved through Czech companies specialised in these fields. 

He also referred to the possibility of cooperation with Jordan in establishing the nuclear reactor, expanding the health sector, and launching direct flights between Amman and Prague. 

Energy Minister Mohammad Hamed welcomed Zeman’s visit, voicing hope that it would pave the way for developing economic relations between the two countries.

Hamed said Jordan’s heavy reliance on oil and gas imports inhibits economic and social development, noting that the government is striving to diversify resources through using shale oil and renewable energy.

The minister added that the 2007-2020 energy strategy is in line with ambitions and goals  that aim at enhancing the contribution of local resources to the overall energy mix.

The Renewable Energy Law is the first of its kind in the region, Hamed continued, noting that it allows investors to develop electricity power production and enable them to sell the  power surplus to the national power grid. 

He also mentioned that the government’s policies in facilitating investments in renewable energy projects have resulted in signing several memoranda of understanding such as the 117-megawatt wind energy project in Tafileh, and other 200-megawatt projects, most of which in Maan.

Regarding oil shale, Hamed said the Kingdom has signed many agreements for generating electricity, one of which with an Estonian company to generate 470 megawatts of electricity, a project expected to conclude in 2018.

There is another agreement with the Saudi Arab Company to utilise oil shale, Hamed noted. 

Czech Vice Minister of Industry Vladimir Bartl, stressed his country’s keenness to enhance economic and commercial cooperation with Jordan and to search for new economic opportunities that would expand commercial exchange and lead to establishing joint investment projects. 

First Deputy President of the Jordan Chamber of Commerce Ghassan Khirfan said the Kingdom’s imports from the Czech Republic in 2013 reached JD25 million, while Jordan’s exports to Czech in 2013 reached only JD67,000, mainly phosphate, fertilisers, potash and medicines. 

On the sidelines of the forum, a  memorandum of understanding was signed between Ministry of  Energy and Mineral Resources, and the Czech ministry of industry and trade to increase bilateral cooperation in the fields of electricity, renewable energy, power rationalisation, nuclear energy and natural gas.

The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission and the Czech Nuclear Research Centre also signed a cooperation agreement in the fields of research and nuclear safety.

The Jordan Chamber of Commerce and the Czech Industrial Union signed a memorandum of understanding to increase bilateral cooperation. 

NEW DELHI — For Indian business, the government and the central bank, data revisions that have transformed the country's $2.1 trillion economy into one of the world's fastest growing are too good to be true.

Now, the search is on for reliable indicators of underlying activity, vital for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as he draws up his annual budget and for Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan as he weighs whether to cut interest rates again.

"Let's not get carried away — the ground reality is very different," one senior finance ministry official told Reuters after figures on Monday showed that India's economy outgrew China's in the three months to December.

Based on a new calculation method, the statistics department said the Indian economy grew 7.5 per cent year on year in the last quarter and is on track to expand 7.4 per cent in the year through March 31.

It was quite a turnaround for Asia's third-largest economy, which based on the old calculations was struggling to recover from the longest spell of sub-par growth in a generation.

Yet far from vindicating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's stewardship of the economy, the revised growth numbers are at odds with evidence on the ground.

Stalled projects and stretched capacity in the power, infrastructure and housing sectors are having knock-on effects down the supply chain to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), indicated Anil Bhardwaj, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises.

"This is a bit perplexing. The feedback we are getting on the ground is not as positive. SMEs are not getting the orders," Bhardwaj told Reuters. "There is an improvement in business sentiment, in the environment, but unfortunately there is no movement on the ground."

Larsen & Toubro, an industrial group regarded as a bellwether for the wider economy, lowered its order book estimates on Monday and said a recovery in its domestic business was at least a year away.

"India Inc., while it continues to be aspiring, is still on the wait and watch mode," Chief Financial Officer R. Shankar Raman told reporters.

Weak revenues, weak demand

The 2015/16 budget that Jaitley will unveil on February 28 will be based on an expectation that the economy would grow at the roaring pace of 8 per cent or more, one source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Yet revenues will lag.

"Everyone is happy that India's gross domestic product growth has picked up, but we are worried over slower growth in tax collections," the source said.

Indirect tax receipts, which include customs and factory gate duties as well as levies on services, have risen by just 6.7 per cent so far in this fiscal year against a budget estimate of 26 per cent for the full year.

A weak tax take also points to fragile consumer demand. Although a plunge in global oil prices has cooled inflation, that has yet to encourage Indian consumers to buy TVs, cars or appliances.

Households are still not confident of any quick turnaround in their fortunes, according to a monthly survey by ZyFin Research. Weak demand has hobbled New Delhi's efforts to revive sluggish auto sales with tax breaks, leading car makers to scale back sales forecasts.

Govind Shrikhande, managing director at Indian retailer Shoppers Stop, is puzzled by the latest gross domestic product (GDP) estimates.

"Is it a trick or a treat?" he asked. "I haven't understood how they are calculating it, but we are not seeing it reflected in business as yet."

Falling merchandise exports and sluggish non-oil, non-gold imports suggest demand remains weak in domestic and overseas markets. Exports fell 2.3 per cent month-on-month in December, while imports of goods other than oil and gold fell 7.1 per cent.

Statisticians defend the jump in their growth estimates, attributing it to better measurements of improved business efficiency that has boosted profits even as sales stagnate.

The statistical fog, meanwhile, makes it unclear how much room Rajan will have to stimulate investment and consumer demand without fuelling inflation after cutting interest rates last month.

Financial markets expect Rajan to make three more quarter-point cuts by December in the RBI's main policy rate, now at 7.75 per cent.

"The faster pace of growth puts Mr Rajan in an awkward position," UBS economists Edward Teather and Alice Fulwood said in a note, adding that even if the RBI revises up its own GDP estimates there is still room for policy rates to fall.

GENEVA — Secret documents published online alleging banking giant HSBC helped wealthy customers dodge millions of dollars in taxes caused global shockwaves Monday and spotlighted the financial dealings of the world's ultra-rich.

The cache of files made public in the so-called SwissLeaks case included the names of celebrities, alleged arms dealers and politicians, though inclusion on the list does not necessarily imply wrongdoing.

The documents published at the weekend claim the London-based bank's Swiss division helped clients in more than 200 countries evade taxes on accounts containing $119 billion (104 billion euros).

The huge cache of files from Europe's biggest bank was stolen by an IT worker in 2007 and passed to French authorities, but had not been previously made public.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) obtained the files via French newspaper Le Monde and shared them with more than 45 other media organisations worldwide.

The documents showed that HSBC opened Swiss accounts for international criminals, businessmen, politicians and celebrities, according to the ICIJ.

The revelations renewed calls for a crackdown on sophisticated tax avoidance by the wealthy and multinational companies. Tax avoidance is legal, but tax evasion is not.

"HSBC profited from doing business with arms dealers who channelled mortar bombs to child soldiers in Africa, bag men for Third World dictators, traffickers in blood diamonds and other international outlaws," ICIJ reported.

Famous names 

A range of current and former politicians from Russia, India and various African and Middle Eastern countries, and the late Australian press magnate Kerry Packer were named in the files.

According to the ICIJ, the list included football and tennis professionals, rock stars and Hollywood actors.

Reuters could not independently verify any of the names listed by the ICIJ. Having a Swiss bank account is not illegal and many are held for legitimate purposes.

The client list included royalty such as Morocco's King Mohammed, politicians, corporate executives including former Santander chairman Emilio Botin, who died last year, and wealthy families, the ICIJ said. A spokesman for the Moroccan royal palace declined to comment.

It also listed arms dealers, people linked to former dictators and traffickers in blood diamonds, and several individuals on the current US sanctions list.

Following the bombshell disclosure, there were calls for a Swiss probe against the bank, which is already facing prosecution in France and Belgium.

"I am angry," former Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey told public broadcaster RTS.

Global fallout on Monday included a Belgian judge said to be considering international arrest warrants for directors of HSBC's Swiss division, while in Britain a political row was triggered, with the main parties blaming each other for not taking action.

Shares in HSBC, whose reputation has been tarnished in recent years by a string of high-profile controversies, were down 1.64 per cent to 610.60 pence at the close of trading in London.

So far, Switzerland has only launched an investigation against HSBC employee-turned-whistle-blower Herve Falciani, who stole the files at the heart of the scandal.

The files were used by the French government to track down tax evaders and shared with other states in 2010, leading to a series of prosecutions.

British tax authorities said Monday they had brought in more than £135 million (181 million euros, $206 million) on the basis of the files.

The Guardian asserted that the files showed HSBC's Swiss bank routinely allowed clients to withdraw "bricks" of cash, often in foreign currencies which were of little use in Switzerland.

HSBC also marketed schemes which were likely to enable wealthy clients to avoid European taxes and colluded with some to conceal undeclared accounts from domestic tax authorities, The Guardian said.

The reports triggered political debate in Britain ahead of a parliamentary election in May. Margaret Hodge, a senior opposition Labour Party lawmaker, said UK tax authorities had done too little.

"All the other countries have collected much more," she told BBC Radio on Monday. "We are never assertive enough, aggressive enough to protect the taxpayer."

David Gauke, a Conservative lawmaker and a junior minister in the finance ministry, criticised HSBC and said the case lifted the lid on poor banking behaviour at the time.

"Clearly HSBC have got questions to answer. Clearly the behaviour that is set out in these disclosures reveal behaviour in 2005 to 2007 that is not what we would expect from a major bank," he said, calling tax evasion "completely unacceptable”.

John Mann, a Labour politician, said HSBC and UK revenue office bosses should be called before lawmakers.

"We acknowledge and are accountable for past compliance and control failures," HSBC said late on Sunday after news outlets published the allegations about its Swiss private bank.

HSBC said that its Swiss arm had not been fully integrated into HSBC after its purchase in 1999, allowing "significantly lower" standards of compliance and due diligence to persist.

HSBC's Swiss banking arm insisted it has since undergone a "radical transformation".

"HSBC's Swiss Private Bank began a radical transformation in 2008 to prevent its services from being used to evade taxes or launder money," Franco Morra, the head of HSBC's Swiss unit, told AFP in an email.

He said the bank had closed the accounts of clients "who did not meet our high standards" and had "strong compliance controls in place", adding that the disclosures were "a reminder that the old business model of Swiss private banking is no longer acceptable".

The Swiss Banking Association said the country's banks had worked hard in recent years to clean up shop and ensure conformity with tax laws.

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin demanded Monday that no mercy be shown to the bank or its tax-cheating clients.

Hidden money? 

Notes in the leaked files indicate HSBC workers were aware of clients' intentions to keep money hidden from national authorities.

Of one Danish account holder collecting cash bundles of kroner, an employee wrote: "All contacts through one of her 3 daughters living in London. Account holder living in Denmark, ie critical as it is a criminal act having an account abroad non declared." 

The files provide details on over 100,000 HSBC clients, including people targeted by US sanctions, such as Turkish businessman Selim Alguadis and Gennady Timchenko, an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Alguadis told the ICIJ it was prudent to keep savings offshore, while a spokesman for Timchenko said he was fully compliant with tax matters.

Other individuals named on the list include Rami Makhlouf, cousin of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, designer Diane von Furstenberg, who told the ICIJ the accounts were inherited from her parents, and model Elle Macpherson, whose lawyers told the ICIJ she was fully in compliance with UK tax law.

Motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi, listed as having $23.9 million in two accounts, said he had regularised his tax situation with Italian authorities.

Switzerland has charged Falciani with industrial espionage and breaching the country's secrecy laws. Falciani could not be reached for comment on Monday but has previously told Reuters he is a whistleblower trying to help governments track down citizens who used Swiss accounts to evade tax.

HSBC said the Swiss private banking industry, long known for its secrecy, operated differently in the past and this may have resulted in HSBC having had "a number of clients that may not have been fully compliant with their applicable tax obligations".

HSBC's Swiss private bank was largely acquired as part of its purchase of Republic National Bank of New York and Safra Republic Holdings, a US private bank.

The ICIJ said details of more than 100,000 clients had been obtained from more than 200 countries. It said 11,235 were based in Switzerland, 9,187 were in France, 8,844 were in Britain, 8,667 were in Brazil and 7,499 were from Italy.

The clients' accounts held more than $100 billion, including $31.2 billion from clients based in Switzerland, $21.7 billion from Britain, $14.8 billion from Venezuela and $13.4 billion from US clients, the ICIJ said. 

HSBC said the number of accounts in its Swiss private bank was much lower, however. It could not explain the difference. HSBC said its Swiss private bank had 30,412 accounts in 2007, which had fallen to 10,343 at the end of last year.

HSBC said it was cooperating with authorities investigating tax matters. Authorities in France, Belgium and Argentina have said they are investigating.

ISTANBUL — The world's 20 biggest economies must focus on higher labour productivity and become more competitive and innovative if they want to deliver on a pledge to boost economic growth, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Monday ahead of a Group of 20 (G-20) meeting.

Leaders of the world's top 20 economies (G-20) agreed last year to launch new measures to raise their collective gross domestic product (GDP) growth by an additional 2 percentage points over the next five years above the level projected in 2013.

The pledge, called the Brisbane Action Plan, entails about 1,000 commitments. G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday will discuss ways to prioritise and implement them.

"Labour productivity remains the main driver of long-term growth," the OECD indicated in a report prepared for the meeting.

The OECD, together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is likely to be tasked with negotiating with individual countries on which reforms to choose first.

"Priority should be given to reforms aimed at developing skills and knowledge-based capital. Raising the quality and inclusiveness of education systems will underpin this," it said.

"Governments need to improve policy settings in competition and innovation to facilitate the entry of new firms and the smooth reallocation of capital and labour towards the most productive firms and sectors," the report added.

Structural reforms have slowed in most advanced economies in the last two years after a flurry of activity at the height of the financial crisis while big emerging economies were speeding up changes, it said.

Overall, structural reforms implemented since the early 2000s have contributed to raising the level of potential GDP per capita by around 5 per cent on average across countries, with most of the gains coming from higher productivity, the OECD indicated.

"Further reform towards current best practice could raise the long-term level of GDP per capita by up to 10 per cent on average across OECD countries," the report said. "This is equivalent to an average gain of around $3,000 per person."

The OECD said governments should ensure that women, young people as well as low-skilled and older workers also get jobs and earn decent salaries.

The G-20 finance officials look likely to reject a proposal to set countries specific investment targets to spur a global economy which appears increasingly reliant on the United States for growth.

The meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Istanbul comes as Greece casts a new shadow over Europe, cheap oil plays havoc with inflation and growth forecasts and a strengthening dollar threatens emerging economies.

Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said Turkey, G-20 chair for 2015, preferred to set binding national investment targets and that the idea was under discussion. But it appeared to be struggling to win support.

"It would be quite complicated and a bit theoretical," French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told reporters. "I am pushing for a global objective. Europe can set its own target and deliver on it, but I don't support precise objectives for everyone else."

A G-20 source said the idea had already been taken off the table.

US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said last week the United States could not be "the sole engine of growth" and a senior US official said Washington's message would again be that Europe is not doing enough.

Germany, with its hefty current account surplus, has come under pressure at successive G-20 meetings to spend more.

Berlin has rejected that suggestion in the past and is likely to argue that its rising domestic demand and plans to increase investment, largely through the private sector, shows it is doing what it can, according to European sources familiar with the G-20 agenda.

Its eurozone peers France and Italy have urged more investment in the struggling single currency bloc.

"We need to be bolder in Europe in terms of risk taking... I hope that policy action will indeed facilitate stronger private sector investments, especially infrastructure investments," Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told a financial gathering in Istanbul ahead of the G-20 meeting.

The Brisbane Action Plan, is now likely to be slimmed down to a more manageable number for each country to deliver on.

"Keep your word, or explain," was how Babacan explained the strategy.

Coming good on those pledges could add more than $2 trillion to the global economy and create millions of new jobs over the next four years, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said in a blog post.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble suggested he was worried about the financial market impact if the new Greek leftist leader, Alexis Tsipras, carried out his threat to exit Greece's international bailout agreement.

Canadian Finance Minister Joe Oliver said there had to be compromise.

"It's clear that Greece has got to be prepared to make some changes, and I think a wholesale repudiation of their debt is not on the cards," he told Reuters in an interview.

"But other countries, creditors will have to work with Greece to arrive at a compromise... I don't think anybody wants Greece to leave the currency union," Oliver said.

The G-20 put together a stimulus package that pulled the world back from the brink in 2009 but today's challenge is more delicate, with diverging monetary policies a cause of global turbulence.

The US Federal Reserve looks set to raise interest rates this year, a stark contrast to huge money printing programmes by the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan and impromptu rate cuts from India to Australia, Canada to Denmark. China's giant economy is also slowing.

A by-product of that is the dollar being driven higher while other major currencies tumble.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told reporters the slide in global oil prices was a benefit for the world economy and the recent weakness of the yen was not a problem.

Italy's Padoan said lower oil prices and the anticipated impact of an ECB plan to buy around a trillion euros of government bonds had helped improve the economic picture and would push the euro to a more "consistent" level.

Reform fatigue

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney urged the G-20 to mount a "big push" to implement global regulatory reforms, fearing that governments may be tiring of non-stop rule making since the financial crisis six years ago.

Carney was speaking as head of the financial stability board which, since Lehman Brothers crashed in September 2008, has coordinated a raft of new banking and markets rules to make the financial system more resilient.

New York — As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas.

For the past five years, the economy of the Lone Star State has outperformed the rest of the United States.

But the collapse in oil prices has left Texas facing its toughest test since the financial crisis.

A 50 per cent tumble in oil prices since June has prompted companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron to slash billions of dollars in worldwide investment. Oil services companies like Schlumberger and Halliburton have announced thousands of job cuts.

So far, only a handful of petroleum companies have filed layoff notices in Texas this year, and the Texas Workforce Commission actually reported an increase in mining jobs in December. 

Yet few doubt what lies ahead for the second-biggest US state, by economic output and population, after California.

There will be "a major-league contraction in oil and gas activity in Texas," said Karr Ingham, owner of Ingham Economic Reporting based in Amarillo in oil-rich West Texas.

"Over the coming months, the industry is going to shed jobs on a regular basis. We're very early in that process," he added.

Boyd Nash-Stacey, senior economist at BBVA Research in Houston, predicted the downturn would cost some 60,000-80,000 mining jobs in Texas, with an additional ripple effect on other sectors such as retail and hospitality.

The oil slump already has begun to cool the real estate market in Houston, the fourth-biggest US city and an economic powerhouse for most of the 2000s due in large part to the surging energy industry.

"It's a question of how bad it's going to get and for how long," said Charles Gordon, a vice chairman of real estate firm CBRE in Houston. "The shock is how fast energy prices fell."

Texas has been outpacing US growth for some time. In 2013, the Texas economy grew at an annual clip of 3.7 per cent compared with 2.2 per cent for the whole economy, and in the prior year its pace was more than double the national rate, according to US commerce department data.

A repeat of 1986? 

The throng of activity into older oil centres like the Permian Basin in West Texas and the newer Eagle Ford shale in southern Texas has been a driver.

Economists agree that matching that flaming growth level will be impossible in 2015, but there is debate about just how bad things will get.

JPMorgan Chase chief US economist Michael Feroli suggested in a December report that the outlook for Texas was comparable to 1986, when a steep drop in oil prices was followed by deep layoffs, big declines in the real-estate market and a banking crisis.

"Texas, will, at the least, have a rough 2015 ahead, and is at risk of slipping into a regional recession," the report said. Given its huge size, "the prospect of a recession in Texas could have some broader reverberations”.

But BBVA's Nash-Stacey said many parts of Texas, including big cities Dallas and San Antonio, have limited exposure to oil and should benefit from the relief of lower gasoline prices.

Moreover, since the 1980s, the state has added a major technology centre in the Austin area, home to Dell, and built out the giant Texas Medical Centre in Houston, which has significant research programmes for cancer and other diseases.

 "It's not a death blow," Nash-Stacey said. "Texas isn't what it was in the 1980s."

The Federal Reserve of Dallas also expects positive economic growth in 2015 in Texas.

"The bottom line is it's going to cause growth to slow, but job growth will remain positive," said Keith Phillips, a senior economist with the central bank division in San Antonio.

Ingham, the Amarillo economist, agreed that Texas will likely lodge some growth in 2015 statewide. 

But Ingham predicted about a 10 per cent contraction in the Midland-Odessa oil region, where some 8,000 oil workers will lose jobs and all businesses are affected by the sector.

Ingham said oil companies will be cautious in the short run before hiring back staff, even if oil prices recover. That could result in departures from oil towns like Midland.

"You're looking at least 18 months out into the future before things start to look a little bit better out there," Ingham added. "Who's in a position to ride that out in terms of not having a job and not having income?"

ATHENS — Greece's new leftist prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, said on Sunday he would not accept an extension to Greece's current bailout, setting up a clash with European Union (EU) leaders, who want him to do just that, at a summit on Thursday.

Tsipras also pledged his government would heal the "wounds" of austerity, sticking to campaign pledges of giving free food and electricity to those who had suffered, and reinstating civil servants who had been fired as part of bailout austerity conditions.

In his first major speech to parliament as premier, the prime minister said he was still optimistic he could reach agreement with Greece's EU partners on a new debt pact and transitional agreement.

"The bailout failed," he said. "The new government is not justified in asking for an extension... because it cannot ask for an extension of mistakes."

Tsipras's speech will have been closely watched by EU leaders who, to date, have shown scant willingness to meet Tsipras's demands, fearing a wholesale backtracking on the fiscal and economic reforms international lenders have demanded in exchange for some 240 billion euros worth of assistance.

Greeks have been severely hit by the austerity imposed on them by the "troika" of European Central Bank (ECB), International Monetary Fund and European Commission lenders. The country is only just coming out of years of economic depression, but roughly one in four Greeks are unemployed.

"The first priority of this government ... is tackling the big wounds of the bailout, tackling the humanitarian crisis just as we promised to do before the elections," Tsipras said.

He added that the main battle would be against corruption and vowed to tackle Greece's long-time struggle with tax evasion.

He also announced a series of cuts to politicians' benefits such as banning ministerial cars and selling one of the prime minister's aircraft.

Tsipras said he would also end property tax and replace it with a tax on high-value property.

Plan for change 

Over the past week, Greek officials have laid out what they see as a transitional plan to keep finances flowing over the next few months while they renegotiate their debt agreement.

Instead of the next tranche of bailout funds, 7.2 billion euros, due pending a suspended review, Greece's new government wants the right to issue more short-term debt beyond a current 15 billion euros threshold. 

It also wants 1.9 billion euros in profits from Greek bonds held by the ECB and other eurozone authorities, something that was agreed previously.

With that as a bridge, Greek officials would then try to renegotiate payment of Greek sovereign bond debt, perhaps by extending payments, only paying interest and getting some respite on the budget surplus it is expected to run.

One government official suggested that not everything had to happen at once.

"The pace of the implementation of our promises is 'within four years'," the official said.

Separately, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Sunday that if Greece is forced out of the eurozone, other countries will inevitably follow and the currency bloc will collapse, in comments which drew a rebuke from Italy.

In an interview with Italian state television network RAI, Varoufakis said Greece's debt problems must be solved as part of a rejection of austerity policies for the eurozone as a whole. 

He called for a massive "new deal" investment programme funded by the European Investment Bank.

"The euro is fragile, it's like building a castle of cards, if you take out the Greek card the others will collapse." Varoufakis said according to an Italian transcript of the interview released by RAI ahead of broadcast.

The eurozone faces a risk of fragmentation and "de-construction" unless it faces up to the fact that Greece, and not only Greece, is unable to pay back its debt under the current terms, Varoufakis added.

"I would warn anyone who is considering strategically amputating Greece from Europe because this is very dangerous," he continued. "Who will be next after us? Portugal? What will happen when Italy discovers it is impossible to remain inside the straitjacket of austerity?"

Varoufakis and Tsipras received friendly words but no support for debt re-negotiation from their Italian counterparts when they visited Rome last week. But Varoufakis said things were different behind the scenes.

"Italian officials, I can't tell you from which big institution, approached me to tell me they backed us but they can't tell the truth because Italy also risks bankruptcy and they are afraid of the reaction from Germany," he said.

"Let's face it, Italy's debt situation is unsustainable," he added, a comment that drew a sharp response from Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, who said in a tweet that Italy's debt was "solid and sustainable”.

Varoufakis's remarks were "out of place", Padoan added, noting that Italy was working for a European solution to Greece's problems, which requires "mutual trust".

Italy's public debt is the largest in the eurozone after Greece's and Italian bond yields surged in 2011 at the height of the eurozone crisis. They have since fallen steeply and have so far come under little pressure from the renewed tensions in Greece.

Varoufakis said his government would propose a "new deal"  for Europe like the one enacted in the United States in the 1930s. This would involve the European Investment Bank investing ten times as much as it has so far, Varoufakis indicated.

If Europe continues to pursue counterproductive austerity policies the only people who will benefit will be "those who hate European democracy", he added, citing the Golden Dawn Party in Greece, the National Front in France and the United Kingdom Independence Party in Britain.

According to Alan Greenspan, the former head of the United States central bank, Greece will have to leave the eurozone sooner or later.

"It is a crisis and I don't see it being resolved easily, in fact I don't see it being resolved without Greece leaving the eurozone," the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve told BBC radio.

"I don't see that it helps them to be in the euro and I certainly don't see how it helps the rest of the eurozone. And I think it's just a matter of time before everyone realises that parting is the best strategy."

Greenspan, who was head of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, said that the eurozone could not continue in its current form without political integration.