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ECONOMIC GLOOM

Airline industry buffeted

AFP, Frankfurt
The world finance crisis has sent leading airlines into a tailspin, figures revealed Wednesday, while more bleak data from Europe, China and Japan left analysts sceptical about prospects lor a turnaround.
European and Asian stock markets were nevertheless mostly higher after a Wall Street surge overnight on upbeat projections from ailing US banking power Citigroup.
In late morning European trade, London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares gained 0.17 percent, Frankfurt's DAX 30 jumped 1.51 percent and in Paris the CAC 10 rose 1.17 percent.
After a tough start to the week that saw new 26-year lows, Japan's Nikkei-225 index bounced back to finish the day up 4.55 percent. There were also solid advances at the close in Hong Kong, Seoul, Sydney and Taipei.
"Rallies in equity markets overnight are being extended in Asia and are a valid reason for investor cheer when good news has been hard to come by of late," said Societe Generale strategist Patrick Bennett.
But he cautioned: "We don't believe the last couple of sessions will have marked a turning point. The global economy is far from out of the woods."
Added VIB Capital analyst Ivan Ivanchenko: "However tired we all are of the crisis and the enormous uncertainty, however much we want happy times back, we remain sceptical of the current episode of risk appetite."
The scope and depth of the current downturn was all too apparent in the financial results of several leading air carriers Wednesday, each of them stung by eroding demand.
After Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific and US giant Delta Air Lines posted heavy losses, German carrier Lufthansa said its profits nosedived by nearly two-thirds last year and expected things to get even worse in 2009.
Cathay Pacific reported a 1.1 billion dollar loss in 2008, reversing profits of 0.9 billion in 2007.
"Cathay Pacific expects an extremely challenging year in 2009. Passenger and cargo demand are expected to remain weak and, if fuel prices remain at their present levels, further loss on fuel hedging contracts will be incurred," chairman Christopher Pratt said in a statement.
Delta chief executive Richard Anderson said his airline would cut a
further 10 percent of international flight capacity this year due to the slump and the company forecast a 14 percent fall in revenue in the first quarter.
Lufthansa meanwhile said its 2008 net profit fell 64 percent to 599 million euros (760 million dollars) and that it expected a further drop this year.
The German flag carrier warned the 2009 figure would also "be clearly below the previous year's result. ’’
Crumbling demand has taken a heavy toll on other sectors of the German economy.
Industrial orders in January fell 8 0 percent, according to an initial estimate from the economy ministry, accelerating from a downwardly revised 7.6 percent in December
Economists had expected the downturn to ease, pencilling in a much more modest drop of 2.4 percent for January. A statement from the economy ministry warned that prospects for German industrial groups in the coming months remained "really weak."
Elsewhere in Europe, Hungary, the benficiary of a 20-billion-euro (25.5-billion-dollar) loan from the IMF, was reported to have entered recession in the fourth quarter of2008 when its economy contracted 1.2 percent.
In Bulgaria official data showed that momentum slowed sharply in the fourth quarter. Gross domestic product expanded by an annualised 3.5 percent against 6.8 percent in the preceding three months.
Latvia, which fell into recession last year and has sought an IMF bailout, reported a record 10.3 percent shrinkage in the fourth quarter of 2008 on a 12-month comparison.
For the full year, the economy contracted by 4.6 percent last year compared with 2007, slightly lower than the forecast 5.0 percent.
There was also evidence of further slippage in Japan, where core machinery orders, a key gauge of corporate capital spending, fell for a fourth straight month, the longest losing streak on record.
"Honestly, this month's result is so bad," a Japanese government official told reporters. "We couldn't find any positive factors anywhere."
China s trade surplus meanwhile shrivelled to 4.84 billion dollars in February from 39 billion dollars a month earlier as exports fell by a quarter, representing an unexpectedly big hit from the global downturn.