23Mar

Generali targets 5 billion euro operating profit after weak 2011

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MILAN (Reuters) – Generali , Europe‘s No.3 insurer, is targeting operating profit of more than 5 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in the mid term as it sees no repeat of the dramatic market shocks that prompted big writedowns in the past year.

Italy’s top insurer said on Wednesday it believes the worst is over after detecting signs of recovery in the early months of 2012, having reported a 50 percent drop in yearly net profit to 856 million euros and a dividend cut late the previous session.

“I am hopeful that we have reached the bottom and now the way is up,” Generali Chief Executive Giovanni Perissinotto told analysts during a conference call, adding he expected “strong growth” in profit this year.

Yet investors punished Generali shares, which were down 3.2 percent by 1212 GMT on the back of the weak earnings and reduced dividend. The company also set an operating profit target for its large life business slightly below the target set for last year.

Generali shares underperformed a 0.3 percent fall in the European insurance sector <.SXIP> as a whole.

Generali had been hit hard by the deepening of the euro zone crisis due to its Greek bond holdings and its exposure to the Italian market. Its 2011 results were hit by impairment losses worth 1 billion euros on Greek bonds and other holdings.

The insurer’s operating result of 3.9 billion euros in 2011 was below the bottom of its target range. It set a new 2012 target at 3.9 to 4.5 billion euros.

MEAGRE DIVIDEND

Weak 2011 net profit forced Generali, the last major European player to report 2011 results, to cut its dividend to 0.20 euro per share from 0.45 euro for 2010.

This contrasts with a decision by French rival Axa and German peer Allianz to keep dividends stable. At 1.52 percent, Generali’s dividend yield is now well below a sector average of 4.7 percent, analysts said.

“The big surprise, in our view, was the larger-than-expected cut in the dividend,” said analysts at Nomura.

European insurers’ 2011 dividends have been under close scrutiny amid investor worries that writedowns on sovereign debt, near-record catastrophe claims and dwindling investment returns might crimp their ability to pay while maintaining healthy capital reserves.

Generali’s Solvency I ratio – a measure of financial strength – held up better than expected in the final quarter of 2011, when yields on Italian government bonds rose to euro-era highs amid an intensification of the euro zone crisis.

The ratio, reported under conservative Italian solvency rules, had rebounded to 132 percent by March 1, 2012 and will get a small additional boost from the announced sale of Israeli unit Midgal. Chief Financial Officer Raffaele Agrusti told analysts Generali was targeting 140 percent in 2014.

The insurer said on Wednesday it was considering further sales of assets it considers non-core.

Generali, which reported a 38 percent rise in 2011 non-life results to 1.56 billion euros, said on Wednesday it had a 2012 target range of 1.5 to 1.9 billion euros, above last year’s goal.

In the life sector, where the insurer saw a 16 percent fall in 2011, this year’s target was set at 2.4 to 2.8 billion euros, below the 2.7-3.2 billion euro target set for last year.

Generali’s effort to expand its footprint in high-growth emerging markets is making it a more attractive player than some rivals, although the outlook for Europe’s life market remains uncertain as the crisis eats into household savings.

($1 = 0.7564 euro)

(Additional reporting by Stephen Jewkes and London stock market team; Editing by Dan Lalor and David Holmes)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/generali-targets-6-6-billion-operating-profit-082711057.html

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23Mar

US unemployment aid applications hit 4-year low

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment aid fell to a four-year low last week, bolstering the view that the job market is strengthening.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000. That’s the lowest level since March 2008, just months into the Great Recession. The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, dipped to 355,000, matching a four-year low.

Applications have steadily declined since last fall. The drop has coincided with the best three months of hiring in two years. From December through February, employers added an average of 245,000 jobs per month. That’s pushed down the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years.

The report suggests that employers added a similar level of jobs this month. This week’s figures cover the same week that the Labor Department surveys companies about hiring in March. Applications are slightly lower this week than in February’s survey week, which points to more job growth.

“U.S. employment growth looks to have continued in March at a respectable pace,” Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Separately, a measure of future U.S. economic activity rose for the fifth straight month.

The Conference Board said that its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.7 percent in February, after a 0.2 percent rise the previous month. The index is designed to anticipate economic conditions in the next three to six months. Most of its components have already been published.

Companies are hiring more because the economy is picking up. The economy grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the final three months of last year. That was better than the 1.8 percent rate in the previous quarter.

Most economists expect growth will slow in the current quarter to below 2.5 percent, despite the pickup in hiring.

Consumers may be spending less because of rising gas prices and small pay increases. And slowing growth in China and a likely recession in Europe could drag on exports.

Still, growth should pick up later this year as rising job creation gives consumers more spending power.

Lee forecasts growth will accelerate to 2.9 percent in the final three months of this year, from 2.2 percent in the current quarter.

“If someone’s been out of work for a long time, and gets a job, they may not go out and spend all they earn,” she said. “There’s a lag,” as they pay off debts and rebuild savings.

Many companies are gaining confidence that the economy is improving. Ancestry.com, a website dedicated to family histories, plans to add 150 new staff this year, on top of an existing work force of about 1,000.

The company has seen a sharp rise in paid memberships, to 1.7 million from 1 million two years ago.

“We’re very optimistic,” said Eric Shoup, an executive vice president at the company. “We continue to see a really good response to both paid marketing and word of mouth marketing.”

There are other signs the economy is steadily recovering. Consumers are more confident and have stepped up spending. Auto sales are rising. Even the battered housing market is showing signs of improving.

January and February comprised the best winter for sales of previously occupied homes in five years, according to figures released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors. January sales were the most since May 2010, the final month that a federal tax credit for home buyers was available. Sales dipped in February but were still 13 percent higher than six months earlier.

Developers are even seeking to build more homes. Requests for permits to build single-family homes and apartments rose 5 percent last month. That brought the annual rate for permits to the highest since October 2008, though they are still running at about half the rate of a healthy market.

The number of people receiving unemployment aid fell. Nearly 7.3 million people received benefits in the week ending March 3, the latest data available. That’s about 140,000 fewer than the previous week.

One concern is that rising gas prices will force consumers to cut back on discretionary spending. That could weigh on economic growth and slow hiring. The Federal Reserve says it expects oil and gas prices to temporarily boost inflation but predicts that longer-term inflation should remain stable.

The job market still has a ways to go to fully recover from the Great Recession. More than 12.8 million people remain unemployed and the economy still has 5 million fewer jobs than before the downturn.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-03-22-Unemployment%20Benefits/id-fc7497dbd048407cba409cd1b935950a

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14Mar

Obama to tout energy progress, oil imports down

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By Alister Bull

WASHINGTON | Mon Mar 12, 2012 9:11am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, arming himself against election-year attacks on his energy policies amid painfully high gas prices, received a report on Monday showing a 1 million barrel-per-day decline in U.S. oil imports in 2011.

Obama, a Democrat, is stepping up defense of his record amid concern that rising oil prices may lift gasoline to $5 a gallon in some parts of the country this summer, posing a potential threat to the president’s bid for re-election on November 6.

“When President Obama took office, America imported 11 million barrels of oil a day. By the end of last year, that number dropped to 8.4 million barrels per day,” the White House said in an annual progress report on U.S. energy security.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll showed disapproval of the president’s handling of the economy increasing to 50 percent, compared with 46 percent when the survey was taken last month. Nearly two-thirds of those polled said that they did not approve of his handling of the situation with gas prices.

Republicans complain Obama has hobbled the energy industry with red tape and point to the administration’s blockage of TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL oil pipeline project to back their charge that he is hostage to environmentalists in his political base.

“Gas prices have skyrocketed but Obama won’t pursue common sense energy policies,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, echoing the claims by Republican candidates vying to face Obama in November.

Rising gas prices could sap consumer spending, undermining economic confidence that has been lifted by recent encouraging data that was capped on Friday by a better-than-expected February jobs report.

The economy, slowly recovering from a savage recession in 2008-2009, but still hampered by an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent, is expected to be a decisive factor in whether Obama can manage to hold on to the White House for a second term.

Obama visited election battleground states North Carolina and Virginia last week to promote his message and will speak at the White House on Monday with local television stations serving key swing states, including Colorado, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Oil prices have been buoyed by improving confidence in the outlook for the U.S. and world economy, as well as heightened concern of fresh military conflict in the Middle East amid warnings from Israel over Iran’s nuclear program.

Eager to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, the White House report noted that net oil imports as a share of total U.S. consumption declined from 57 percent in 2008 to 45 percent in 2011, “the lowest level in 16 years.”

Obama also has told his administration to look into possible manipulation in the oil market as well as evidence of price gouging at the pump, and has not ruled out tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

“We are monitoring the situation and certainly are willing to use all tools available to address these challenges,” a White House official told reporters on a conference call on Sunday to preview the report.

(Reporting By Alister Bull; Editing by Paul Simao and Bill Trott)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Reuters/PoliticsNews/~3/zSCIgkaca4w/us-usa-energy-obama-idUSBRE82B0FA20120312

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10Mar

‘ID thieves have bounced back’: Big jump, survey says

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Identity thieves have regained the upper hand, suggests a new survey released Wednesday by fraud research firm Javelin Strategy & Research.? The firm’s annual survey of 5,000 consumers suggests a rise in the rate of ID theft during 2011, reversing a drop in identity-related that was found in last year’s survey.? The main cause of the new increase: A return to old-fashioned credit card fraud.

“There’s been a rebound. ? ID thieves have bounced back,” said Javelin President James Van Dyke,?explaining that meant about 7.7 million Americans were hit with credit and debit card fraud in 2011, or about 2.2 million more?than in the previous year.

The survey estimates that 11.6 million Americans were hit by ID theft in 2011, compared to 10.2 million in 2010. Put another way, 4.9 percent of the U.S. adult population — roughly 1 in 20 adults — was affected by identity-related fraud last year, compared to 4.35 percent of the population in 2010.

Javelin, like the Federal Trade Commission, uses a fairly broad definition for identity theft: ?any time a transaction occurs using a victim?s name or account information without authorization.

Nearly all the increase can be attributed to sharp rise in credit-card fraud, the survey found. Last year, 2.3 percent of all adults found unauthorized charges on their cards, compared to 1.4 percent in 2010.

A recent rise in credit card fraud has also shown up in previously unpublished research by security firm Gartner. Analyst Avivah Litan shared the data with msnbc.com.?

Her survey found that, of all adults who say they’ve been hit by credit card fraud at some point, 29 percent said the most recent incident had occurred in the 12 months preceding September, when her survey was conducted.? That compares to just 18 percent who said the most recent incident hit 13-24 months earlier.

“Our data says the same thing (as the Javelin data),” Litan said. “It is worth noting that increases in fraud rates are even more pronounced on the small business and corporate side, which Javelin didn’t survey.”

Javelin’s 2011 survey is the seventh time the firm has queried American adults looking for ID fraud trends. The survey, which has a maximum margin of error of 1.7 percent, was sponsored by several financial services companies, but Van Dyke said the sponsors weren?t? allowed to interfere with the research methodology or the publication of the resulting report.

What would cause a rise in old-fashioned card data theft?? Numerous factors, Van Dyke said.

“It’s probably partly an issue of where the gains (the banks) had made couldn’t be sustained,” Van Dyke said. “Also, the economy also plays a part. We’ve done this long enough to see a correlation between the state of the economy and this kind of fraud.”?

The recession has made life a bit harder for banks? back-end fraud prevention systems, too. Some consumers have simply stopped using credit cards, but maintain open accounts. These dormant cards are ripe for fraud.? Meanwhile, the recession has also dramatically altered some consumers? buying patterns, throwing banks? pattern-recognition efforts off.

There is good news within Javelin’s results, however.? The rate of new account fraud — when a criminal uses a victim’s personal information and good credit to open up new accounts — has dropped slightly, according to survey takers. New account fraud is much more of nightmare for victims, and more costly to financial institutions..

“In fact, the overall amount lost to identity fraud is down slightly,” Van Dyke said, from an estimated $20 billion to $18 billion.

The survey also hints at some other larger trends in identity security.? Smartphone users are about 30 percent more likely to report being hit by ID fraud. Surprisingly, 62 percent say they do not use a screen password to protect their devices.

“People aren’t protecting their devices,” Van Dyke said.

Some 36 million Americans, or roughly 15 percent of U.S. adults, say they received a data breach notification in 2011 from a company indicating it had lost their personal information.? Those who say they received such a notice were more than nine times as likely to also report being fraud victims.

“This is a trend we see spanning four years now, yet we haven’t been able to generate any meaningful public awareness around it,” Van Dyke said. Many consumers don’t even sign up for free credit monitoring services when they are offered by companies that have leaked data, he said.?

Even so, more Americans detected ID fraud through electronic monitoring of accounts — such as through online banking — than through paper statements, the first time that has happened, according to the survey.? Such monitoring leads to earlier detection and lower financial losses for both banks and consumers.

Finally, the survey suggests some connection between active use of social networks and ID theft. Slightly more than 10 percent of LinkedIn users say they were hit (10.1 percent), while 7 percent of Google+ users and 6.3 percent of Twitter users reported being victims — all three above average. Facebook users, at 5.7 percent, were barely above the national average of 4.9 percent.

Those with public profiles often confessed to being careless with data: 45 percent share their birth date and year;? 63 percent shared their high school; 18 percent shared their phone number; and 12 percent shared their pet’s name.

“We still have a significant education problem,” Van Dyke said. “Consumers are having trouble? being able to grasp what is sometimes conflicting advice in the marketplace. In fact, sometimes it?s impossible to follow the patchwork advice they are given.”

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Source: http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/21/10471719-survey-id-theft-on-the-rise-again-card-victims-jump-by-2-million-annually

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18Feb

CA-CANADA Summary (Reuters)

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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reuters – Canada’s annual inflation rate rose more than expected in January, boosted by higher energy and transportation prices, but the increase was not seen as strong enough to spur the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates this year. The annual rate increased to 2.5 percent in January from 2.3 percent in December, Statistics Canada said on Friday. The year-over-year increase was slightly greater than the 2.3 percent predicted by economists.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120217/wl_canada_nm/canada_summary

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11Feb

Generation Y Doesn't Trust The Stock Market, But Is Heavily …

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Growing up during America’s “lost decade” has certainly taken a toll on Generation Y, which has lived through the tech bust in 2000 and the financial catastrophe of 2008.

Forty percent of Gen Yers — 18- to 30-year-olds — say they will “never feel comfortable investing in the stock market,” according to a study from MFS Investment Management that was reported in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Yet for all that pessimism, Gen Y is heavily invested in the market, as Journal columnist Carolyn T. Geer points out. Thanks to a six-year-old law that offers companies incentives for automatically enrolling employees in 401(k) plans, the number of twenty-somethings who are investing in stocks has grown.

The law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2006, most affected workers who were newest to the workforce, often Gen Yers. According to the Investment Company Institute and Employee Benefit Research Institute, which examined the portfolios of 23 million individuals with 401(k)s, the percentage of twenty-somethings with 80 percent or more of their 401(k) funds in the stock market grew from 55.3 percent in 2000 to 60 percent in 2010.

Generation Y encompasses 77 million Americans who have combined earning power of $1 trillion, according to MFS Investment Management. Saving is currently not a priority for a large portion of Gen Yers — 38 percent say they live from paycheck to paycheck.

Investing young, however, is key. Reuters reports:

According to data from Baltimore-based fund shop T. Rowe Price, if one saver puts away $500 a month from ages 21 to 30 and enjoys a 7 percent annual return, she will end up with almost a million bucks at age 65. That handily beats another saver who waits for that level of return until age 31 yet contributes all the way to 65, despite putting up $150,000 more than the first investor.

“Whether wealth is transferred to Gen Y from older generations or they generate it themselves, it is a demographic imperative that the financial services industry embraces younger investors,” William Finnegan, senior managing director of U.S. retail marketing for MFS, stated in the MFS study.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/08/generation-y-investing-stocks_n_1262998.html

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03Feb

Rwanda: Non performing loans on decline ? IMF – In2EastAfrica …

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BCR is one of the banks that have significantly whittled down the level of non performing loans. The New Times

Local banks have posted a slowdown in loans that end up in non performing category, a sign of the strong activity in the financial sector, which is occasioned by the central bank?s improved supervisory capacity.

According to statistics from the International Monetary Fund, Non Performing Loans (NPL) dropped to 9.3 percent as of September last year from 17 percent in 2007.

?The banking system has remained well capitalised with nonperforming loans declining from 11.3 percent at end-2010 to 9.3 percent at end-September 2011, and profitability improving,? IMF said in a report.

According to IMF, the decline in NPLs is attributed to the central bank?s continued efforts to strengthen its supervisory capacity by hiring and training new supervisors for banks and SACCOs.

The central bank hired five bank supervisors and 60 inspectors for SACCOs. Francoise Kagoyire, the Director of Banking Sector at the central bank said the decline is also driven by best practices in banks especially in risk management.

?Procedures to give out loans were tightened and this ensured that newcomers don?t worsen the situation,? she said in a phone interview.

Official forecasts indicate that NPLs are expected to be reduced further to seven percent this year with an overall target of five percent in all banks.

The other driver of low NPLs is sharing of borrowers? information amongst banks where bad borrowers are identified.

In an effort to reduce the NPL to the central bank?s threshold, the credit reference bureau is expected to provide a platform for lending institutions to strengthen their credit appraisal procedures with a view to enhancing credit quality and responsible credit behaviour in the financial system.

Kenya Commercial Bank Managing Director, Maurice K. Toroitich said the situation is a combination of many factors including an improved debt repayment culture amongst borrowers supported by Credit Reference Bureau.

?In addition, banks are exercising prudent lending practices plus certain old bad debts have been written off by banks,? he said.

KCB has one of the lowest NPLs in the market at five percent.

The Managing Director of Rwanda Commercial Bank, Sanjeev Anand, said that the Bank?s NPL dropped from 19 percent in January last year to 5.5 percent as of December 2011.

Commercial bank credit to the privates sector grew by 28.4 percent last year to Rwf509.8b last year, reflecting a serious rebound in economic activity.

By Gertrude Majyambere, The New Times

Do you have a story or an article to publish? Please email us to submit@in2eastafrica.net.

Source: http://in2eastafrica.net/rwanda-non-performing-loans-on-decline-imf/

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27Jan

Pharmacies Respond Inaccurately to Teens Seeking Contraception (LiveScience.com)

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Pharmacies may misinform teens about whether they are allowed to buy emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy after sex, a new study finds.

Such misinformation is more commonly given by pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods, the study showed.

The researchers called 943 commercial pharmacies in five states. The caller posed as a 17-year-old girl seeking emergency contraception after unprotected sex. Under Food and Drug Administration rules, the emergency contraception drug called Plan B may be sold over the counter (without a prescription) to women ages 17 and older (those ages 16 and younger need a prescription).

But of the pharmacies who said they had emergency contraception available that day, 19 percent said the 17-year-old caller could not buy the emergency contraception under any circumstances. The pharmacies who responded this way usually hung up the phone quickly.

“We were really surprised that so many pharmacies actually ended the conversation at that point,” said study researcher Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center.

The misinformation was more common in poor neighborhoods: 23.7 percent of pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods said the teenage caller could not obtain emergency contraception at all, compared with 14.6 percent in other neighborhoods.

In addition, just under half (44 percent) of pharmacies surveyed gave the incorrect age at which a teenager can obtain emergency contraception without a prescription. Most who got it wrong said a person needed to be older than 17 to obtain emergency contraception. In low-income neighborhoods, about 50 percent of pharmacies gave the incorrect age, compared to about 37 percent in other neighborhoods.

The findings suggest that access to emergency contraception is particularly difficult for young women living in low-income areas ? areas that also have higher rates of teen pregnancy, Wilkinson said.

While access to Plan B isn’t the only factor that affects teen pregnancy rates, “knowing that teen pregnancy rates are higher in low-income neighborhoods makes this disparity an even bigger problem,” Wilkinson said.

The researchers noted their results are based on calls to pharmacies and not in-person visits, which may have yielded different responses. But adolescents may call pharmacies beforehand, and may be discouraged from going to a pharmacy in person if they receive incorrect information about emergency contraception, Wilkinson said.

Pass it on: Women ages 17 and up can buy Plan B without a prescription.

This story was provided by MyHealthNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer Rachael Rettner on Twitter @RachaelRettner. Find us on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20120125/sc_livescience/pharmaciesrespondinaccuratelytoteensseekingcontraception

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20Jan

Wholesale prices declined slightly last month

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. wholesale prices fell last month because companies paid less for food and energy, evidence that inflation remains tame.

The Labor Department said Wednesday that the producer price index, which measures price changes before they reach consumers, declined 0.1 percent in December. That follows a 0.3 percent rise the previous month and is the second drop in three months.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core wholesale prices rose 0.3 percent. It was the largest increase in five months. Higher prices for pickup trucks, cars, and pharmaceuticals drove the increase.

Still, overall wholesale prices are trending lower. They increased 4.8 percent in December compared to the same month a year ago. That’s the slowest annual increase since January and down from a recent peak of 7.1 percent in July.

And the increase in core prices may be temporary. Flooding last year in Thailand may have disrupted some auto supply chains, pushing pickup truck and car prices higher.

Higher truck prices accounted for about one-third of the increase in core prices.

“Both headline and core inflation should be a lot lower by the end of this year,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, in a note to clients.

Lower wholesale costs mean manufacturers and retailers don’t face as much pressure to raise prices for consumers in order to maintain profits. That could keep consumer price inflation in check.

Low also inflation allows the Federal Reserve with more leeway to keep interest rates low and take other steps to boost the economy.

The Fed projects consumer price inflation will fall from about 2.8 percent in 2011 to roughly 1.7 percent this year. That’s in the Fed’s preferred range for core inflation of about 1.7 percent to 2 percent.

Food prices fell 0.8 percent, mostly because of a big drop in vegetable prices. Tomatoes fell 36.9 percent, the most since May, while lettuce prices dropped by almost 25 percent. The drop follows a big increase in vegetable prices in November.

Pork prices fell last month by the most in more than three years, and chicken costs also declined.

Energy costs also dropped 0.8 percent, in part because of a decline in seasonally adjusted gas prices. Residential natural gas costs also fell, reflecting an increase in natural gas drilling from U.S. shale rock deposits.

A small amount of inflation can be good for the economy. It encourages businesses and consumers to spend and invest money sooner rather than later, before inflation erodes its value.

Wholesale price inflation peaked last year and most economists expect that it will continue to moderate. The prices of oil and agricultural commodities such as cotton and corn have fallen after spiking in early 2011.

The decline in commodity prices pushed down gas prices and enabled retailers to offer discounts on many goods. That helped boost consumer spending, which makes up 70 percent of economic activity.

Consumer spending likely grew at the fastest pace in a year in the final three months of 2011. Some economists estimate that it rose at a 3 percent annual pace in the October-December quarter, up from a 1.7 percent rate in the third quarter.

As a result, overall growth may top 3 percent in the fourth quarter. That would be an improvement from the 1.8 percent annual pace in the July-September quarter and 0.9 percent in the first six months of the year.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-18-Wholesale%20Prices/id-b6049ce8ab7c47c08dbd58aa06f849b2

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13Jan

Summary Box: China auto sales slow in 2011 (AP)

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THE DATA: Vehicle sales in China rose a scant 2.5 percent in 2011, the slowest growth in more than a decade, as higher prices and traffic controls kept buyers out of showrooms.

THE HISTORY: Car sales in China soared 32 percent in 2010 after the government cut sales taxes and offered subsidies to spur demand, but growth slowed once the incentives ended.

THE OUTLOOK: China’s market is bound to continue to expand, given the relatively low level of vehicle ownership among increasingly affluent families, but most analysts do not expect a return to the torrid growth of the past.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120112/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_auto_sales_summary_box

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