Riga  - Latvia's central bank sought Thursday to pump liquidity into the nation's banking system and urged the government to balance its budget in 2009.

The announcement by the bank's governor, Ilmars Rimsevics, came as the once-booming Baltic economies slump and credit remains tight worldwide in the fallout from the mortgage crisis in the United States.

The central bank left key interest rates unchanged, but cut the mandatory reserve requirement to 5 per cent of liabilities for maturities of over two years, which is expected to add 190 million lats (376 million dollars) to Latvia's banking system.

Slowing growth pushed the government's budget for 2008 to a deficit of 2 per cent of the gross domestic product.

Ljubljana  - Slovenia's economy picked up slightly in the second quarter to an annual growth rate of 5.5 per cent, despite slower rises in consumer spending and construction, official data showed Thursday.

Slovenia, an export-driven economy and the only formerly communist eurozone member, recorded 5.4-per-cent growth in the first quarter.

Trade accounted for 0.3 percentage points of the second-quarter gain after holding back gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first three months of 2008, the national statistics office said.

Reykjavik  - The central bank of Iceland Thursday kept the country's key interest rate at 15.5 per cent, citing that it was "likely that inflation is near its peak."

The central bank raised the interest rate to its current level in April.

The August inflation rate was 14.5 per cent, well above the bank's inflation target of 2.5 per cent, although it is allowed to deviate by 1.5 percentage points in either direction.

While the inflation rate might be peaking and the economy was likely to contract, the central bank argued for continued tight monetary control.

Taipei- Taiwan's cabinet on Thursday announced a 180-billion-Taiwan-dollar (5.6-billion-US-dollar) package aimed at stimulating the island's sagging economy and ailing stock market.

The package, introduced amid mounting criticism of the government of China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou, included tax reforms, financial incentives for local industries, and measures to boost exports and investment, cabinet officials said.

Tokyo- Japan's machinery orders fell 3.9 per cent in July in seasonally adjusted terms compared with the previous month, the government said Thursday.

Private-sector machinery orders declined an unadjusted 4.7 per cent from the same month a year before to 1.04 trillion yen (9.72 billion dollars), the Cabinet Office said.

Private-sector machinery orders are regarded as a leading indicator of corporate capital spending about six months ahead, and the second drop in two months indicated that manufacturers expected the global economic slowdown to further dampen demand.

Brussels - The European Union's finance ministers are to hold informal talks in the sunny French Riviera on Friday and Saturday.

But given the dark clouds hovering over their economies, they are set for a stormy gathering in Nice.

In one corner of the meeting room will sit the "goodies": those ministers who have either managed to contain the impact of the latest global economic slowdown, or whose governments were thrifty enough during the good times to be able to spend their way out of the present crisis.