Berlin  - Germany's economy will pick up in 2010 after a rough patch next year, Chancellor Angela Merkel predicted on Tuesday as she spoke to an audience of German business leaders.

"We'll face bad news in 2009, but we are going to do something so that 2010 will be better," said Merkel, who faces a general election next September. Merkel's cabinet was set to approve on Wednesday an anti-recession federal spending package.

She told the national employers' association she expected Germany's export-led economic growth to ultimately recover.

Berlin - Germany backs a call to boost the size of a European Union relief fund for nations facing balance of payments difficulties, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin Friday.

A proposal to increase the fund to 20 billion euros (25 billion dollars) was originally made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The fund exists to lend money to EU members that run short of foreign exchange.

Merkel's spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said the chancellor would back Sarkozy on the issue at an EU summit on November 7 in Brussels.

Nuremberg, Germany - German talks on boosting government spending to offset recession are to continue through the weekend, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday.

Pump-priming is planned by a broad range of western countries as world gloom spreads.

Merkel said, "It's important that such an ambitious plan fits in with the measures by other nations."

Speaking in Nuremberg, she noted that a G20 summit she is to attend in Washington on November 15 would also review how to boost the economies of the emerging markets.

London - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was "delighted" to have been received by Queen Elizabeth II during a flying visit to London Thursday.

Merkel said she had told the British monarch during their private meeting in Buckingham Palace that Germany had "every interest in seeing the UK as a close partner and friend."

She had also made clear that she was "delighted that the UK was part and parcel of the EU," Merkel told journalists after the audience.

Berlin - Plans for economy-boosting moves by Germany's government were confirmed Wednesday in Berlin by Chancellor Angela Merkel as a global recession looms.

Addressing Germany's import-export federation BGA in Berlin, she said the package would include "focussed, bold and sustained" incentives for investment rather than being just a broad-based rise in government spending.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Tuesday for early reforms of world financial markets as she met with a panel of German experts who have been appointed to draw up proposals.