Hanoi - The Vietnamese government Tuesday reported a record trade surplus, but local economists said they were more worried than pleased.

The state-run newspaper Vietnam News on Tuesday quoted Vietnam's General Statistics Office (GSO) as saying the country spent just 11.8 billion dollars on imports, down 45 per cent from the same period last year, while earning
13.5 billion dollars from exports, a slight increase of 2.4 per cent year-on-year.

Beijing - China's central bank on Tuesday said it supports moves towards a global currency reserve to replace the existing reliance on the US dollar to settle international payments.

Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China, advocated a "gradual process" of reform of international currency reserves under the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Hong Kong - Nearly one in five young people in Hong Kong is out of work as the city's jobless rate is driven higher by the economic crisis, according to official figures released Tuesday.

Eighteen per cent of the working population aged 15 to 19 were unemployed in the first quarter of 2009 compared to just 10.8 per cent in the same period in 2008, government statistics showed.

Vilnius  - Industrial production (IP) in Lithuania nosedived by more than 15 per cent in February, according to official figures released Monday by the national statistics office.

EU member Lithuania is the biggest of the three Baltic states with the largest industrial sector. However, its industrial muscle appears to be withering in the face of the global economic downturn according to data from Statistics Lithuania showing industrial production fell by 15.3 per cent year-on-year in February.

January's figures showed a contraction by 5.6 per cent.

Riga  - Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said Monday his government did not intend to approach international lenders for an additional 1 billion euros (1.35 billion dollars) on top of an existing 7.5-billion assistance package, as reported by some media.

"Is Latvia's government requesting an additional billion? The answer is no," he said during a press briefing.

However, Dombrovskis stopped short of ruling out such action in future.

Budapest  - The Hungarian National Bank opted to maintain its high base rate of 9.5 per cent at a meeting of its Monetary Policy Council on Monday.

The bank said in a statement that the decision was a response to worsening economic conditions and a need to maintain stability and the value of the national currency.

The decision was announced after a morning of wild swings in the value of the forint, when it weakened to 307 against the euro before firming slightly.

This volatility came two days after Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's surprise announcement that he was ready to step down.