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The European automobile manufacturers welcome the EUR 3 billion in loans freed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance automotive projects, most of them concerning "green" investments. As the Bank indicated, in total around EUR 7 billion will become available in the first half of this year and its budget allows maintaining similar levels of financing until 2012.

As part of its effort to combat climate change and drive economic recovery, the European Commission called on Member States and industry to use information and communications technologies (ICT) to improve energy efficiency. These technologies are expected to reduce total carbon emissions in Europe by up to 15% by 2020. ICT can not only improve monitoring and management of energy use in factories, offices and in public spaces but above all help make people more aware of how they use energy. With smart metering in their homes, for example, consumers have been found to reduce their energy consumption by as much as 10%.

From January to February, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 2,008.04 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.2 percent.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ for the U.K. declined 0.4 percent, and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index™ for the U.K. decreased 0.1 percent in January.

Network Solutions® and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business announced the launch of the Small Business Success Index©, an ongoing measurement of the overall health of U.S. small businesses based on a telephone survey of 1,000 small business owners. The benchmark survey, which gathered data used to create the Small Business Success Index, was conducted in December 2008 and January 2009 and found that 69% of small businesses were profitable in 2008.

The worldwide mobile phone market felt the full effects of the economic crisis in the fourth quarter of 2008 as shipments fell 11.6% year over year, marking the first time the holiday quarter has not recorded double digit growth in seven years. This closed out a year that was dismal at best, yet overall 2008 managed to grow 4.3% over 2007. This has set the stage for what IDC predicts to be a very rough 2009, with the most recent market forecast anticipating growth of -8.3% for the year.

In January 2009 compared with December 2008, the industrial producer price index fell by 0.8% in the euro area (EA16) and by 0.6% in the EU27. In December 2008, prices decreased by 1.5% and 1.7% respectively.

RealtyTrac(R)released its February 2009 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report(TM), which shows foreclosure filings - default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions - were reported on 290,631 U.S. properties during the month, an increase of nearly 6 percent from the previous month and an increase of nearly 30 percent from February 2008. The report also shows one in every 440 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in February.

As news of the economic crisis continues to unfold, the first look at actual 2008 disclosures reveals substantial investment losses for the largest U.S. corporate pension plan sponsors, according to a new analysis by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm. While many of these losses are due to equity declines, equity allocation targets for 2009 have not changed substantially.

In a new report, Navigant Consulting, Inc. found that beyond the billions in writedowns, the credit crisis produced a jaw-dropping 576 new litigation matters filed in U.S. federal courts in 2008.