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comScore, Inc. released U.S. e-commerce spending figures for the third quarter of 2007, showing that retail e-commerce increased 23 percent versus year ago to $28.4 billion.

Unit labour costs (ULC) in industry are on the rise in most major OECD economies. Second quarter 2007 data show moderate increases of 0.3% in the United States, the United Kingdom and France, 0.2% in Canada and a larger 0.9% rise in Italy.

The annual rate of growth of M3 decreased to 11.3% in September 2007, from 11.6% in August 2007. The three-month average of the annual growth rates of M3 over the period July 2007 - September 2007 stood at 11.5%, after 11.4% in the period June 2007 - August 2007.

Russia is the EU27's third most important trading partner, after the USA and China, accounting for 6.2% of EU27 exports and 10.4% of EU27 imports in 2006, compared to 2.7% and 6.4% respectively in 2000. The EU27 deficit in trade with Russia increased from 41 billion euro in 2000 to 69 bn in 2006. This increased deficit was due to imports of energy, which rose from 36 bn in 2000 to 94 bn in 2006, while exports of machinery and vehicles increased from 8 bn in 2000 to 34 bn in 2006.

According to the latest revisions, the EU27 external current account recorded a deficit of 14.6 billion euro in the second quarter of 2007, compared with a deficit of 18.9 bn in the second quarter of 2006 and a deficit of 28.1 bn in the first quarter of 2007.

In 2006, China's e-Commerce industry enjoyed a fast rate of growth. In the first half of 2006, the quantity of Internet subscribers reached 132 million in China and telecommunications hardware, such as the broadband environment, were also improved.

Consumer catering has come along way in the past few decades, especially since the opening-up of the economy since the late 1980s, and the introduction of foreign fastfood marketing methods. Yet China’s consumer catering market remains strongly attached to its local traditions. These entrenched traditions have forced the foreign invaders to adapt both their menus and the way they do business in order to suit local tastes, all at the same time that they have been forced to change their operating methods in their established markets in North America and Europe. require the ability to dodge through heavy urban traffic. The massive changes that China has been seen over the past few years have also forced changes on the whole industry.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global mobile phone shipments grew a modest 12 percent year-over-year, to reach 285 million units in Q3 2007. Samsung and Nokia were the star performers.

UEAPME, the European craft and SME employers' organisation, welcomed the communication "Stepping up the fight against undeclared work" published by the European Commission.

About 19% of EU CO2 emissions are produced by passenger cars and light-commercial vehicles. The automotive industry's voluntary commitment to slash emissions has proven a "failure", however - this, according to a report by the European Parliament, adopted by a large majority, which calls for legislation to cap average emissions from all new passenger cars at 125g CO2/km as of 2015.