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President Barack Obama needs to grasp Southeast Asia’s economic potential and help boost U.S. investment when he travels to Indonesia three weeks from now, economic ministers from the region said.

“There’s still a lack of awareness in the U.S., a misperception that we have to address,” Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said in an interview in Putrajaya, Malaysia, where envoys from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met at the weekend. “We have to keep up the momentum” to expand cooperation, she said.

Asean ministers plan to travel to the U.S. in May to meet with business executives. The association plans to showcase its position as an economic hub in competing for funds with China and India, the world’s fastest-growing economies.

Obama, who became the first U.S. leader to meet with the 10-member bloc in November, is aiming to increase trade with Asia to help meet a January pledge to double exports in five years. Southeast Asia was the third-biggest market for U.S. goods in 2008 behind Canada and Mexico.

The region is rich in coal, oil and precious metals as well as containing sea lanes vital to world trade. Asean aims to form an economic community modeled on the European Union, though without a common currency, by 2015. It has already signed free- trade accords with China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Economic Recovery

“It’s important that Mr. Obama look more to the East,” Thai Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot said in an interview. “There has been a power shift toward this region after the financial crisis, and I hope Obama will have a clear message for Asean when he visits.”

Asia’s export-dependent economies are emerging from recession as global demand increases for the region’s computer chips, cars and commodities. In January, Detroit-based General Motors Co. received local funding to open a diesel-engine plant in Thailand, and Santa Clara, California-based Intel Corp. plans to start operations of a chip assembly and testing plant in Vietnam later this year.

Asean leaders will aim to make the U.S. “understand why we have been able to succeed and why we will continue to undertake the policies that would ensure that this economic recovery is not just a coincidence,” Pangestu said. “We’ve actually moved further than you think and the opportunity is there.”

Investment Programs

Foreign direct investment from the U.S. into Asean from 2006 to 2008 amounted to $12.8 billion, or 6.9 percent of the bloc’s total, down from 17 percent from 1995 to 2001. The EU invested $42.1 billion into Asean from 2006 to 2008 while Japan put down $28.7 billion, statistics show.

Economic disparity among Asean members has hindered the region’s ability to leverage its market of 584 million people guaranteed online payday loans.

The region’s four largest economies — Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia — account for almost 80 percent of all foreign investment into Asean. The Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are the other members of the 10-nation group.

“There is a lot of unutilized potential” for joint investments between Southeast Asian countries, Mustapa Mohamed, Malaysia’s minister of international trade and industry, said in an interview. “We are underperforming in intra-Asean trade, so that’s a priority this year.”

Trade Initiative

Southeast Asian countries are split on Obama’s top trade initiative, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he aims to turn into a platform for economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region. Vietnam, Singapore and Brunei will join New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Australia and the U.S. for talks on the TPP later this year.

“The success of the TPP depends very much on the attitude and the viewpoint of the U.S.,” Vu Huy Hoang, Vietnam’s minister of industry and trade, told reporters.

Malaysia and Indonesia are both reviewing the TPP and haven’t decided whether to join talks. Thailand prefers a free- trade deal between the U.S. and Asean as a bloc, Alongkorn said.

“We have noted that investments from the U.S. have dropped,” Surin Pitsuwan, Asean’s secretary-general, told reporters yesterday after the meeting, which ran from Feb. 27 until today. “There is very keen interest in strengthening cooperation, but because of the differences and diversity among us we have not yet made a definite decision whether or not this is going to be a free-trade agreement.”

China Trade

Indonesia notified its partners in Asean earlier this year that it wants to revise the group’s free-trade agreement with China, which took force on Jan. 1 and scraps tariffs on about 90 percent of goods.

Textiles, food and electronics companies have said they will suffer from the inflow of cheaper Chinese goods.

China’s trade with Asean has jumped sixfold since 2000 to $193 billion in 2008. The country’s share of Southeast Asia’s total commerce increased to 11.3 percent from 4 percent in that time, whereas the U.S. portion fell to 10.6 percent from 15 percent, Asean statistics show.

“We don’t worry so much about having to compete with the U.S. in the way some sectors worry about having to compete with China,” Indonesia’s Pangestu said. “From the Asean-U.S. perspective of increasing trade and investment, it’s more like, ‘Hey guys, the U.S. is back.’”

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Chicago-based Berlin Packaging said Monday it will acquire All-Pak Inc., a packaging supplier based in Bridgeville, near Pittsburgh.

Berlin Packaging describes itself as a "full-service supplier of plastic, glass and metal containers and closures." All-Pak evolved from the former Cunningham Glass Co., which has been in the Pittsburgh area for some 50 years.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed Monday, and it was not clear whether any Pittsburgh-area layoffs would result from the acquisition.

According to a news release, the combined company, which will be headquartered in Chicago, will have annual revenue approaching $500 million. All-Pak will maintain a "significant operational presence at all of its geographical locations," according to the release.

The acquisition is expected to close by the end of February, according to the release.

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Ben Bernanke watch: 6 days and counting.

The Federal Reserve chairman’s term ends on Sunday, and Washington is abuzz with speculation about whether the Senate will reconfirm him.

The Obama administration is confident that he has the 60 votes he needs to get Bernanke another term.

"We need his leadership," White House adviser David Axelrod told CNN on Sunday. "And the president is very confident that the chairman will be confirmed."

Obama phoned senators over the weekend to "check in" a White House official told CNN. And Senate leaders also scrambled to see where the votes are. Bernanke is expected to spend part of Monday talking to senators on Capitol Hill.

Until last week, Bernanke’s confirmation had been viewed as a sure thing.

But voter frustration has been growing against Washington, as lawmakers are accused of doing a better job at getting Wall Street back on its feet than Main Street.

Then Massachusetts voters chose upstart Republican Scott Brown to take over a Senate seat once considered a Democratic stronghold.

Gauging support: Lawmakers, especially those up for election in November, began to publicly turn on Bernanke.

Last Friday, Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said they plan to vote against Bernanke. Both are up for re-election this fall. Several other Democratic senators told CNN they’re undecided.

Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is also up for re-election and down in the pools, issued a tepid statement late Friday saying he’d support Bernanke, but "my support is not unconditional."

It’s not clear whether Bernanke’s confirmation is in jeopardy, because he was always expected to win some Republican support.

Many Republicans and Democrats have yet to publicly declare their allegiance.

In the Senate Banking Committee, four Republicans voted to confirm Bernanke, crediting him for saving the economy from a second Great Depression payday loans.

Other Democratic senators and a Republican issued statements of support over the weekend. These include Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

"The White House appears to have applied a sufficient tourniquet to Bernanke’s reconfirmation over the weekend," wrote Chris Krueger, an analyst for Concept Capital Washington Research Group in a report.

But the Senate can’t even start the process of considering Bernanke until 60 senators sign off, because a few senators who oppose his confirmation filed official "holds" delaying the process.

Some have started to wonder whether Bernanke will be confirmed before Feb. 1. If the vote is delayed, there’s a question as to whether Bernanke can be temporarily re-appointed as acting chair. If not, Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn would serve as acting chairman.

Senate Democrats are expected to start the confirmation process later this week, according to Congressional aides.

Bernanke has always had his critics in the Senate. Bernie Sanders, a left-leaning independent from Vermont who often votes with the Democrats, and Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Sanders’ political opposite, are two of the most vocal.

"Democrats and President Obama are putting their credibility on the line if they think they can criticize Wall Street and big banks one day and then turn around and support Bernanke, Wall Street’s candidate, the next day," Sanders said. "That doesn’t pass the smell test."

* CNN’s Jamie Crawford contributed to this report. 

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European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet intensified pressure on Greece to cut the continent’s biggest budget deficit with a warning that the country won’t get any favors from policy makers.

As Prime Minister George Papandreou struggles to convince investors and European Union governments he can regain control of the country’s budget, Trichet yesterday said no nation can expect any “special treatment.”

“The central bank has clearly chosen to maintain its pressure on the Greek government, rather than easing the heightened tensions in bond markets,” said Laurent Bilke, a former ECB economist now at Nomura International Plc in London.

Greek bonds extended declines after Trichet’s comments, which came after the ECB left its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 1 percent. While Greece was his main target, Trichet told other euro members to take the “difficult decisions” needed to tackle “sharply rising” budget gaps or face higher borrowing costs that hurt economic growth.

The Greek remarks eclipsed those made on monetary policy as officials turn their attention from the financial crisis to the nations most hurt by the recession. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in comments published yesterday that Greece’s fiscal woes could hurt the euro and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean- Claude Juncker said International Monetary Fund aid wouldn’t be “appropriate.”

Collateral

Rating downgrades sparked a rout in Greece’s bonds in December as investors tuned into a budget deficit of 12.7 percent of gross domestic product, more than four times the European Union limit. The yield on the 2-year Greek note today rose 6 basis points to 3.559 percent, extending yesterday’s gain of 44 points.

Arguing that it has received enough of a benefit from euro membership, Trichet said the ECB won’t help Greece by delaying the reintroduction of its pre-crisis collateral rules at the end of 2010. Downgrades by Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s have fanned concerns its bonds will be excluded from the ECB’s market operations.

“We will not change our collateral policy for the sake of any particular country,” Trichet said.

The subsequent selloff suggests the market “still harbors hopes that the ECB would abort its collateral decision,” said Elga Bartsch, chief European economist at Morgan Stanley in London guaranteed high risk personal loans. Juergen Michels, chief euro-area economist at Citigroup Inc., said the ECB will ultimately agree to rules “that do not put too much additional pressure on member countries.”

Short Shrift

Trichet also downplayed the importance of Greece for the euro region as a whole. While Greece makes up about 3 percent of the bloc’s GDP, 13 percent of the U.S. economy is accounted for by California, which is also suffering financial difficulties.

Those remarks drew short shift from Andrew Bosomworth, a former ECB economist and now head of portfolio management at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Munich. He warned Greece could still cause “contagion” to other economies with poor finances such as Portugal or Spain.

“While each of those countries in their own right may not be very big, or a threat to the euro area, if one of them were to go you have potential domino effect that could snowball into a big problem for the euro area,” Bosomworth said in a television interview yesterday.

Marco Annunziata, chief economist at UniCredit Group in London, said policy makers are playing a “nerve-wracking game of chicken” in the hope that their tough rhetoric will pressure Greece into action.

Budget Shortfall

“If a rescue turns out to be necessary, a rescue operation will be mounted,” Annunziata said.

In Athens, Papandreou yesterday pledged to “do whatever it takes” to rein in the budget shortfall and restore confidence in the country’s finances when he published the three-year budget plan.

The government’s latest proposals, to be presented to the European Commission today, call for about 10 billion euros ($14 billion) of spending cuts and revenue increases this year to bring the shortfall from 12.7 percent of output to 8.7 percent by year-end.

“Our country can and is obliged to exit as soon as possible this vicious circle of misery,” Papandreou said. “We will not retreat; we will proceed quickly.”

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The Toronto stock market closed slightly higher Friday as investors tried to take the Dubai credit crisis in stride, hoping that it won't stall the global economic recovery.

"Really, after a pretty good dunking yesterday, the TSX is holding in quite nicely today," said Blair Falconer, portfolio manager at HSBC Securities Canada.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed 27.61 points higher at 11,464.41 after tumbling 200 points Thursday in the wake of an announcement that Dubai World, a government investment company, had asked creditors to postpone its forthcoming payments on US$60 billion in debt until May.

Thursday's loss was responsible for a TSX loss of 114.92 points or one per cent this past week.

New York markets finished sharply lower Friday, catching up with the losses racked up by other global markets after being closed Thursday over the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

The Dow Jones industrial averaged closed down 154.48 points at 10,309.92 at the end of a shortened session. The blue chip index was flat for the week, up a slight eight points.

The Dubai announcement Wednesday stoked fears of a potential default and contagion around the global financial system, particularly in emerging markets. But a day later, investors were taking a harder look at what the Dubai debt crises means.

"This is tantamount to a sovereign default and so that's what makes it a lot more serious than most," added Falconer.

He observed that investors felt better Friday knowing that Canadian financials have limited or no exposure to the Dubai debt and "also the fact that the European banks, which do have exposure, cleared the decks fairly quickly by saying here's what our exposure is."

"People were able to say OK, it's spread around fairly well; it's not one country taking a major hit; it looks OK."

The Canadian dollar was down 0.09 of a cent to 94.21 cents US after a flight to the greenback had sent the loonie down 1.35 US cents on Thursday.

The financial sector led gainers, up 0.8 per cent with investors confident the Canadian banking sector won't be affected by the Dubai issue. CIBC (TSX: CM) gained 80 cents to $68.80 while Royal Bank (TSX: RY) advanced 82 cents to $56.70.

Railway stocks took the industrials sector ahead 0.91 per cent, with Canadian National Railways (TSX: CNR) up 64 cents to $55.64. CN was meeting with the union representing 1,700 locomotive engineers in advance of a midnight Friday night strike deadline.

Commodities were also weaker, but well off early lows, with the January crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange falling $1 advance payday loans.91 from Wednesday's close to US$76.05 a barrel. The energy sector was off 0.12 per cent.

The gold sector was off 1.83 per cent as bullion prices also gave up ground with the December gold contract on the Nymex down $12.80 to US$1,174.20 an ounce. Iamgold (TSX: IMG) lost 36 cents to $19.68 while Centerra Gold (TSX: CG) faded 24 cents to $13.04.

December copper was down seven cents to US$3.09 a pound and the base metals sector fell per 0.92 per cent. Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) lost 48 cents to $12.51.

The TSX Venture Exchange moved down 13.77 points to 1,405.6.

New York's Nasdaq composite index lost 37.61 points to 2,138.44 while the S&P 500 was down 19.14 points at 1,091.49.

The latest trouble on markets came as the U.S. kicked off the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season – coincidentally called Black Friday. Investors will be tracking news from retailers for insights into how much consumers will spend in the coming month. Consumer spending is the biggest driver of the U.S. economy.

European bourses advanced following steep losses on Thursday. London's FTSE 100 was 0.99 per cent higher, Frankfurt's DAX was ahead 1.27 per cent and the Paris CAC 40 was ahead 1.15 per cent.

In economic news, Statistics Canada says the country's current account fell to a record deficit in the third quarter to a seasonally adjusted $13.1 billion. The agency says the shortfall was largely due to a $4-billion deficit in the exchange of goods, as imports outstripped exports.

On the corporate front, Mosaid Technologies Inc. (TSX: MSD) said Thursday it earned $5 million or 49 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Oct. 31 compared with a loss of $3.4 million or 33 cents per diluted share a year ago. Revenue in the quarter totalled $17.3 million, up from $13.8 million. Its shares ran ahead $1.20 to $19.06.

Canwest Global Communications (TSXV:CGS) said overall revenue in its latest quarter fell to $624 million, down 13 per cent from a year earlier. The media company has put its conventional television operations under court protection while working out a restructuring plan with creditors.

Canwest's net loss for its fiscal fourth quarter was reduced to $111 million from $1.02 billion a year ago, when the company recognized a number of extraordinary expenses. Its shares on the Venture exchange were unchanged at eight cents.

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Spanish home prices fell for a seventh quarter in the three months through June as mortgage lending contracted and the worst recession in 60 years pushed up unemployment.

The average price of new and used houses and apartments declined 0.4 percent from the previous quarter, when they fell 2.7 percent, the National Statistics Institute said today in an e-mailed statement. From a year earlier, prices dropped 7.7 percent, with the price of new homes falling 3.9 percent and existing houses declining 11.2 percent.

House prices more than doubled in the decade through 2007 amid falling interest rates and economic growth averaging almost 4 percent a year. The market had already started slowing when the global credit crisis hit, slashing lending, pushing real- estate companies into bankruptcy and leaving more than a million new homes unsold.

Spain, home to 11 percent of the European Union’s population, built more than 29 percent of all new homes in the EU from 2001 though 2007. That increased the number of unsold homes to as much as 1.6 million and outstripped annual demand of 218,482 units, according to R.R. de Acuna & Asociados, a property-research company. The excess supply will take six or seven years to be absorbed, the company’s president Fernando Rodriguez de Acuna said on Sept. 15.

The economy has been contracting since the second quarter of 2008, pushing the unemployment rate to 18.5 percent in July, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development expects Spain to take longer than other European countries to recover from the recession. The number of mortgages issued for houses fell 19 percent in July from a year earlier and housing sales declined 20 percent, according to separate data from INE.

Standard & Poor’s forecasts Spanish house prices may fall 20 percent this year, followed by declines of 10 percent and 5 percent in the next two years, it said June 24.

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The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance fell last week, and ongoing claims also dropped, the government said Thursday.

There were 550,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Sept. 5, down 26,000 from a revised 576,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report.

A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 560,000 new claims.

The 4-week moving average of initial claims was 570,000 down 2,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 572,750.

"We’re still talking about declining at a slower pace, not outright job growth," said Tim Quinlan, analyst at Wells Fargo, who noted initial claims were at their lowest level since July.

Quinlan added that claims levels are well off the highs seen earlier this year amid mass layoffs, but they remain "roughly double what they would be in an expansionary economic environment."

Continuing claims: The government said 6,088,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended Aug. 29, the most recent data available. That’s down 159,000 from the preceding week’s revised 6,247,000 claims.

The 4-week moving average for ongoing claims fell by 37,750 to 6,182,500, down from the prior week’s revised average of 6,220,250.

The initial claims number identifies those filing for their first week of unemployment benefits. Continuing claims reflect people filing each week after their initial claim until the end of their standard benefits, which usually last 26 weeks free instant credit reports.

The figures do not include those who have moved to state or federal extensions, nor people whose benefits have expired.

State-by-state data: A total of six states reported a decline in initial claims of more than 1,000 for the week ended Aug. 29, the most recent data available. Claims in Michigan fell the most, by 1,915.

Conversely, five states said that claims increased by more than 1,000. New York reported the most new claims at 4,546, which a state-supplied comment said was due to more layoffs in the transportation and service sectors.

Outlook: "In the short term, [claims] may give up some ground, but we probably have turned a corner," Quinlan said.

Wells Fargo estimates the recession ended in July, he said, but the labor market will likely not recover until the second quarter of 2010. Even when some signs of recovery are evident, "it will take a ton" to improve the unemployment rate, he added.

"It doesn’t mean the economy overall is [still] in greater trouble, but it lags overall recovery," Quinlan said.

Initial claims will probably fall within a range of 500,000 and 600,000 through the end of 2009, Quinlan said.

"[Filings] could even fall below the 500,000 mark," Quinlan said. "That’s optimistic, but it’s possible."  

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U.K. consumer confidence rose to the highest level in more than a year in August as signs mounted that the economy is emerging from the worst recession in a generation, Nationwide Building Society said.

An index of sentiment rose to 63, the highest since May 2008, from 61 in July, Britain’s biggest customer-owned lender said in an e-mailed statement today. TNS questioned 1,000 people for Nationwide from July 20 to Aug. 23.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said yesterday that the economy has started growing again, and a separate report today signaled the first improvement in the labor market for 17 months. The Bank of England will tomorrow probably stick to its plan to keep spending newly printed money as policy makers try to entrench the recovery, economists say.

“Consumers are beginning to feel more positive not only about the future, but also about the present situation,” Martin Gahbauer, chief economist at Nationwide, said in the statement. “A number of key economic indicators continue to show that we may have reached the bottom of the current recessionary cycle.”

A measure of Britons’ assessment of their present situation rose 1 point to 17, and a gauge of willingness to spend increased to 97 from 96, the report showed. Nationwide’s index of future expectations increased 3 points to 94.

Gross domestic product increased 0.2 percent in the three months through August, compared with a decline of 0.3 percent in the three months through July, Niesr, whose clients include the central bank, said yesterday. That’s the first time GDP has risen since the quarter through May 2008.

Trade Data

The U.K. trade deficit was wider than economists forecast in July as imports from outside the European Union rose faster than exports free credit report. The goods-trade gap was 6.5 billion pounds ($10.7 billion), the same as in June, the Office for National Statistics said today. The median forecast of 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 6.3 billion-pound deficit.

The labor market, where unemployment reached a 14-year high in the second quarter, may be showing signs of improvement, according to a separate report today by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Federation. Their measure of hiring for permanent jobs rose to 50.6 last month from 46.1 in July. That’s the first result above 50, signaling expansion, since March 2008.

Brown’s View

“There were some interesting and encouraging signs today but the prime minister’s view is that this is not a time for complacency,” Simon Lewis, Gordon Brown’s spokesman, told reporters today. “The prime minister feels strongly about the need to keep recovery going by maintaining the appropriate level of expenditure.”

The threat of deflation may convince policy makers to keep up their measures to stoke economic growth. Average U.K. shop prices fell 0.1 percent in August from a year earlier, the first annual decline since February 2007, according to a report released today by the British Retail Consortium.

The bank will leave the benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent tomorrow, according to all 60 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. All 35 forecasts in another survey are for no change in the 175 billion pounds total that the bank plans to spend in U.K. debt markets with newly printed money.

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Fewer Americans filed claims for jobless benefits last week, another sign the economy is pulling out of the worst recession since the 1930s.

Applications fell by 10,000 to 570,000, a higher level than forecast, in the week ended Aug. 22 from a revised 580,000 the week before, the Labor Department said Thursday. The total number of people collecting unemployment insurance fell to the lowest level since April.

Job cuts are easing as government stimulus measures help stabilize the housing and manufacturing industries. At the same time, a rebound in hiring will take longer to occur, restraining the consumer spending that accounts for 70 percent of the economy.

"We’re definitely seeing firings slowing as firms are much leaner than they were earlier," said David Semmens, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank. "Any good news in the labor market provides a floor for consumer sentiment."

Economists forecast that claims would fall to 565,000 from a previously reported 576,000.

The report showed the four-week moving average of initial applications, a less volatile measure, dropped to 566,250 last week from 571,000.

Continuing claims plunged by 119,000 in the week ended Aug. 15 to 6.13 million, the least since the week ended April 4.

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China has leveled new allegations in the arrest of employees of one of the world’s largest mining companies, saying Rio Tinto overcharged Chinese steel mills by $100 million over six years.

The latest allegations, involving the sale of iron ore, appeared on a Web site affiliated with China’s state secrets administration.

A spokeswoman for Rio Tinto (RTP) said Monday that the company had heard about the new accusations but did not wish to comment on it.

Last month, China arrested four company employees on suspicion of stealing state secrets.

China said the four employees bribed executives from 16 of China’s major steel mills to obtain industry information.

Rio Tinto has called the charges surprising and said it was not aware of any evidence to support an investigation.

The company recently was involved in annual negotiations about supply contracts with Chinese mills faxless payday loan online.

The arrests come a month after Rio Tinto broke off a more than $19 billion investment deal with China state-owned Chinalco.

The deal with Chinalco was signed in February and was awaiting a review by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.

Rio Tinto has headquarters in London, England, and Melbourne, Australia.

The deal soured as opposition party members in Australia ratcheted disapproval, saying it would put Australian resources at strategic risk.

Others saw the deal as an alliance that would further link resource-rich Australia with the commodities-hungry Chinese market.

– CNN’s Jo Ling Kent contributed to this report. 

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