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EU ENDS SANCTIONS ON LIBYA

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union has ended 12 years of sanctions against Libya and eased an arms embargo to reward the North African country for giving up plans to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The decision by the EU foreign ministers brought the 25-nation bloc in line with a UN decision last year and reflected a significant warming of relations in recent months.

The sanctions were imposed in 1992 to force Tripoli to hand over two Libyans indicted for the 1988 bombing of a Pan American Airways airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

A year later, they were expanded to include a freeze on Libyan assets in foreign bank accounts and a ban on buying oil equipment.

The Security Council suspended the sanctions after the two Lockerbie suspects were delivered for trial in 1999, and abolished them last year after Libya agreed to compensate the families of the Lockerbie victims as well as those of the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over Niger.

VIETNAM'S INDUSTRIAL EXPORTS SURGE
 
HANOI, Vietnam - The value of Vietnam's industrial exports jumped 30.6% in the first nine months of this year.
 
Vietnam earned more than $15 billion from industrial product exports during this period, with exports of heavy industrial products and minerals surging by 45.2% and exports of light industrial products and handicrafts climbing by 23%.
 
The majority of key exports like oil, gas, and coal have grown strongly in both volume and export revenue during the third quarter, thanks to favorable export prices, according to government sources.

Last month, Vietnam shipped 14.7 million ton of crude oil to overseas customers, a 14.4% increase in volume compared to September 2003.

GERMAN ECONOMY LOSING MOMENTUM

BERLIN, Germany - The German economic recovery is losing steam and third quarter economic growth is likely to be weaker than initially thought, according to Commerzbank economists reviewing the Labor and Economic Ministry's latest industrial and export data.

Though the timing of the summer holidays in Germany this year has distorted economic data somewhat, the trend points to a slowing in the pace of growth, they said.

According to the data, German industrial output fell a seasonally-adjusted 1.0% in August from July. Economists had forecast on average a month-on-month decline of 0.5%.
 
Other data showed exports, traditionally an engine of the country's economy, slumping 1.4% in August from July to $69.5 billion dollars.

The figures prompted the Deutsche Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), one of the six leading institutes for economic research in Germany, to cut its forecast for third quarter gross domestic product growth to 0.3% from 0.5%.
 
"A significant reason for this has been the slowing in world demand in the third quarter, so that large orders [for German goods] did not arrive in the same quantities as in the previous two quarters," it said.
 
German GDP grew 0.5% in the second quarter compared with the first quarter.

The team of economists said in a research note the trade data also pointed to a slowing in the pace of economic growth.

"During the summer months the German economy still received strong support from abroad, though the momentum is obviously fading," they said citing a rise in imports of just 0.1% month-on-month in August.

TEXTILE GROUPS SEEK CURBS ON CHINESE APPAREL

WASHINGTON, DC - Several US textile groups have asked the Bush Administration to preemptively restrict imports of cotton trousers from China.
 
The Department of Commerce confirmed that the US industry had filed petitions asking for emergency import curbs on the products, specifically men's and boy's trousers, as well as women's and girl's.
 
According to observers, the move by the US textile industry was motivated by fears of job losses when the quota system that has governed the textile trade for several decades expires at the end of the year.

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