For the first time in many a long while, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been drawn to admit that he would have no option but to make some public spending cuts, and that they would be both considerable and imminent.

Brown, addressing a meeting of trade unionists announced that the government would have no option but to “cut costs, cut inefficiencies, cut unnecessary programmes and cut lower priority budgets”. He went on to admit that a new pay austerity for the UK was on its way, hinting strongly that “realistic” public sector pay settlements were a must.

The Prime Minister’s comments were made at a meeting to the Trade Unions Council (TUC) held in Liverpool were obviously designed to pre-empt the forthcoming pre-Budget report due to be released in the autumn. The report will set out Labour’s plans for priority public spending and any cuts. Full details of departmental spending from 2011 are not expected to be included.

The suggestion that there me be public spending cuts is certainly radical, as Brown has steadfastly refused to admit the need for cuts in any form till now,

Not slow to take political advantage of Brown’s apparent turnaround was shadow chancellor George Osborne, who described the PM’s statement a “complete capitulation”.

The prime minister claimed the recession had thrown up some fairly major challenges and on each occasion the government had made the right choice: whether propping up the banks or cutting taxes to boost the economy.

Chancellor Alasdair Darling is expected to use the pre-Budget report to try to identify net cuts to accelerate the government’s plan to halve the deficit to 5.5 per cent by 2014. Never slow to criticise, Bank of England governor Mervyn King, says that the deficit cuts will be too timid.

Summing up his speech in Liverpool, Brown admitted that Britain was only just on the road to recovery – and conditions were “fragile”. He defended his governments over the last year by stating that they had rescued the banking system, saved up to half a million jobs and taken specific actions to help not business and home owners.

financial

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Tags: Bank, Banking, British Economy, British Pound, Budget, Credit Crunch, Economics, Economy, Financial News, George Osborne, Gordon Brown, Money, pre-Budget report, Prime Minister, Recession, spending cuts, Tax, Trade Unions Council, TUC, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession

It was a day for financial contemplation on Tuesday as the first anniversary of Lehman Brothers filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the early hours of 15 September 2008 was marked, not quite by a minute’s silence but by many hours of contemplation of who the World’s financial systems almost went into meltdown.

Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, once the fourth-largest US investment bank, the knock on effect caused meant that governments around the world had to pump trillions into their financial systems. The previously unimagined bank bail-outs, central bank actions and huge stimulus plans to save their biggest banks followed. Moves that are estimated to have cost every citizen of the developed world around $10,000 each..

On the day, Paul Myners, the minister who job it is to oversee London’s financial district, announced that he remains “very confident” that the UK’s multibillion-pound bailout of its troubled lenders will result in a profit for the country.

Last year the U.K. orchestrated a rescue package for banks including Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc. In the April annual budget the government submitted to Parliament it estimated that the bailout may cost taxpayers £50 billion

When asked to give his impressions when investments in the UK banking system would result in profit for members of the U.K. public, Myners replied by assessing that it will take “much less” time than a decade, and when it came it would add up to a “a nice little nest egg for the British taxpayer.”

Speaking of nest eggs or was it Easter eggs, Cadbury’s chief executive Todd Stitzer is due to be in the hot seat today, when he faces a group of the company’s’ top level investors since Kraft’s £10.2 billion unsolicited takeover proposal was rejected by the company. Stitzer as well as Andrew Bonfield, Cadbury’s chief financial officer are expected to be asked to outline the confectionery group’s long-term growth plans. The address was scheduled before Kraft approached Cadbury late last month.

UK oil and gas explorer, BG Group have announced another oil and gas discovery in a giant field off the coast of Brazil on Monday, making it the second in less than a week.

BG said further work was needed to evaluate the results before any concrete announcement can be made.

Hopes of a swift economic rebound and warned households and businesses of a “slow and protracted” recovery, according to Mervyn King, Bank of England governor.

King’s comments led to a sharp reassessment in financial markets of the likelihood and timing of any rise in interest rates.

The pound has taken a beating in the last few days, falling against all the major currencies for the last three months.

• Pound/US dollar 1.6477
• Pound/Euro 1.122
• Pound/Japanese Yen 148.8052
• Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7034

The FTSE 100 continued its upswing rising 60.31 points to finish on 5.102.44 while the FTSE 250 rose on Tuesday by 87.24 points to 9251.84/

The US recession is probably over but the economy will remain weak for some time due to unemployment, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has said.

But he added that the economy would still feel "very weak" to Americans concerned about job security.

A year after Lehman Brothers collapsed, a think tank has warned the lessons of the crisis have not been learned.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says the rapid return to the City’s bonus culture shows that real reform has been "very limited".

The warnings echoed a speech by US President Barack Obama, who warned of complacency in the banking sector.

Despite President Obama’s and Bernanke’s comments , stocks on Wall Street rose on the day’s trading. The Dow Jones rose by 56.61 points to 9683.41, while the NASDAQ rose by 10.86 points to 2102.64.

Japan Airlines (JAL) plans to cut 6,800 jobs, as an airline trade body upped its projected losses for the global industry this year.

Media reports have said several US and European airlines are in the running to take a stake in the loss-making carrier.

The airline had already launched a programme of job cuts, plans for fuel-efficiency and a focus on business customers.

Reports this week have suggested that Delta Airlines and American Airlines are in talks to invest in JAL to expand into Asia via code-sharing agreements.

financial

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Tags: Andrew Bonfield, Bank of England, Banking, bankruptcy, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, BG Group, British Economy, British Pound, Budget, Cadbury, Credit Crunch, Currency, Dow Jones, Economy, Employment, Financial News, FTSE, Gordon Brown, Institute for Public Policy Research, Investment, IPPR, JAL, Japan Airlines, Kraft, Lehman Brothers, Lloyds, Mervyn King, Money, Money Markets, NASDAQ, Paul Myners, Recession, Retail, Royal Bank of Scotland, Stitzer, Stock Markets, Stocks and shares, UK Banks, UK Economy, UK government, UK Recession, US President

Recent reports have it that the injection of public money that is supposed to pump new life into the construction industry is just not making it. Construction projects across the UK lay abandoned and uncompleted sector, glaring evidence that the sharpest contraction that the building sector has ever known looks a long way from ending.

According to a recent survey carried out on behalf of the industry, the UK government pledge to re-programme more than £3 billion of publicly owned construction projects , that were due to begin in 2010 and 2011 to this year, have failed to materialise as yet. The idea of bringing these projects forward was to offset that painful lack of new building starts in the private sector.

However a recent report from the Construction Products Association revealed that a nationwide cross section of their members reported that instead of the promised increase in new projects, even existing construction projects have been mothballed by the UK government as funding dries up. These projects include important and much needed public works including schools, hospitals road works and general infrastructure, had found public work had declined over the past year. Of the civil engineering and building companies contributing to the survey, 47 per cent of them reported lower work rates in the first quarter of 2009. Construction companies involved in building social housing reported a fall of project completions 27 percent compared to last year.

According to a spokesman for the UK Contractor’s Group, the government stimuli that was promised in Darling’s budget and pre-budget reports have so far failed to appear and their absence is having a very distinct impact on the UK construction industry, which has been hardest hit by the recession. The sector accounts for about 8 per cent of UK output and a similar percentage of jobs.

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Tags: Alastair Darling, Alistair Darling, British Economy, Budget, Construction Industry, Construction Products Association, Credit Crunch, Economy, Employment, Recession, UK Contractor’s Group, UK Credit Cards, UK government, UK Recession

For the average UK family times are still tough and they best that they can hope for is that they can retain the status quo until better times come around.
Surveys are beginning to show that there is more optimism around, the worst is over and most families are digging in for the long haul.

This means that when the family sits down to discuss their budget (which we all know that they should) then the principal factors that should be taken into account are:

1) How much do we earn?
2) How much do we spend?
3) How much can we afford to spend?

Hopefully all three questions should have roughly the same answer, but if they don’t adjustments have to be made. If cuts have to be made they should be, and families that have attempted to borrow their way out of income shortfalls have learned that in the long term this is a recipe for disaster.

The next stage for many families the next decision is where do we cut? Many families make the wrong decisions at this stage, usually under peer pressure, a modern epidemic of the Western World. Why do with a model 2000 car when the next door neighbor has a 2002, and so on. Why should your little Arthur have a 17″ computer screen, when Damien his best friend has a 22″ with quadraphonic speakers? The list is endless.

And does your next door neighbor or spoiled little Damien know or even care that you are under-insured and even under-pensioned?

The sad facts are that too many families in the UK fail to take their responsibilities seriously as far as insuring their properties, their possessions and even worse, their health or their lives. The theory that “it can’t happen to me” or” let me get through the next six months, and I will see to it” is as dangerous as it is irresponsible. Too many families or individuals don’t get that six months and when calamity strikes they are left totally or at best partially exposed and the ramifications can be much more traumatic than the event itself.

So when it comes down to look at what to cut, do yourself a favour; add insurance and pensions to your list of “untouchables”

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Tags: Banking and Insurance, Budget, Economy, Financial News, Insurance, Tesco

Whilst it is easy to gain the government and the banks for the financial quagmire that the UK succeeded in sinking itself in, the public also have to be levied a portion of the blame. As a leading financial analyst proudly proclaims, it was the shopping centres and the credit cards that did it as much as anything else. The banks and credit card seemed driven to provide unlimited credit, and the government turned their backs and pretended that it wasn’t happening. And the British public at large had a great time running up debts on their credit cards that they had no chance. And in some cases, no intention of repaying.

There are people who will be saddled with debts for at least the next decade, and will be paying fairly exorbitant interest on those debts as a lesson on how to use credit cards in the era which is hopefully not too far away. The end of the first great economic turn down of the 21st century.

Let’s face it. Having a credit card at your disposal is very convenient. And make no mistake about it, the majority of people whose lives became very difficult through misuse of the powers and responsibilities that being issued with a credit card entails, will continue to use them in the future.

However the rules of the game will be different. Anyone who has found themselves under an immense burden of debt would never have enjoyed the experience, and will never want to repeat it. And even if they did, the banks will have imposed such a strict system of checks and balances that the chances that it will happen will be miniscule. Credit cards were meant to replace cash and cheques, and when viewed in that light, they do an excellent job. A responsible person with a credit card should only use that card to cover around 40% of their monthly financial outlay, and should stagger payments amounting to no more than a quarter of their monthly credit card bill.

These are very simple rules, but if adhered to, will prevent a repeat of the most uncomfortable experiences that too many people have gone through in the last couple of year.

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Tags: Bank, Banking, Budget, Credit, Credit Crunch, UK Credit Cards

Estimates have it that by next year, the U.K. will have the unfortunate distinction of being the holder of the largest budget deficit in the developed world, almost entirely reversing the country’s hard earned status as the role model of a successful and wealthy financial services epicenter. A status that she has held for the last decade.

With the UK’s s budget deficit soaring to a staggering twelve percent of gross domestic product, who could now take Great Britain’s role as the key player on the global financial services stage seriously, and with forecasts that it could take at least another ten years to get the country’s finances back into some form of healthy financial situation, it seems likely that the UK financial service industry will be placed on a back burner for years to come.

While no one is confirming the fact that the UK crown has slipped, it is hard to disguise the fact that our credibility has slipped, and at a very crucial time. Jobs in the financial service industry in Great Britain are under serious threat. Tens of thousands have already disappeared as cut backs continue on a widespread basis, and the estimates are that more than 70,000 will disappear till the crisis runs its course

Despite the fact that the UK Treasury has pumped billions of pounds into the Banking and Insurance sectors to prevent a meltdown in the city, there seems a scant chance of a return in confidence any time soon. In order o recover at least some of their investments; the Treasury is demanding a whole new set of standards from the financial institutions. These standards mean that, in any event, dealing with the “city” will be a lot less attractive, it is only reasonable to suspect that the World’s financial movers and shakers may well be taking their business elsewhere.

The financial input from the financial services industry will be sadly missed, contributing almost eleven percent of the UK’s gross domestic product as recently as 2007, more than double of what it was just ten years previously.

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Tags: Budget, Financial News, London, UK Recession, UK treasury

Most people who had the courage to listen to Chancellor Alasdair Darling’s budget speech yesterday were left shocked but not particularly surprised by its content. One group who were left speechless however was the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) who complained that the budget had largely ignored the small businesses. Businesses that are predicted to be the driving force behind the nation’s economic recovery as well as being one of its principal forces in creates new jobs.

Whilst the FSB expressed their appreciation of the Treasury’s focus on saving as well creating new jobs in the Budget, they also pointed out that small business enterprise must be encouraged in order to present a framework for job creation.

The majority of small to medium sized business in the UK are suffering from short and long term cash flow problems, with the Government’s proposed trade credit insurance scheme being seen as a lifeline for many. However ,

the FSB announced their disappointment that the Government had failed to announce automatic rate relief for small firms in the budget, and expressed their fears that the Chancellor missed the opportunity to give those firms the immediate financial boost they need at this time. This announcement came in the wake of U.K. Business Secretary Peter Mandelson plans released on Wednesday that the government to actively intervene in the trade credit insurance market with a temporary scheme designed to five billion pounds of Treasury guarantees. The feelings from the FSB is that the sum is insufficient and without a specific time frame.

Another brainchild of Mandelson, appeared to be given the “green light” in the budget are plans to boost the struggling motor industry with the introduction of a “car scrappage” scheme The scheme will allow consumers a £2,000 subsidy against exchanging their car for one that is more environmentally friendly.

Apart from the glum budget, it was also revealed yesterday that unemployment in the UK continues to climb. It has now reached 2.1 million in the first quarter, with last month’s figures signalling the 13th consecutive monthly rise.

The latest figures showed that a further 177,000 jobs have been lost, marking a 6.7 percent increase in unemployment, up by 0.6 percent from the previous quarter, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics

The figures also showed that the number of people who have been unemployed for more than a year increased by 49,000 in the first quarter and is now approaching half a million.

Despite the doom and gloom, things on the stock exchange were still positive

On the day, the FTSE 100 added 43 points to close at 4,030.66 in London, while the FTSE 250 rose around 180 points to 7,159.96.

Retailers were the sector who showed the highest gains, led by auto retailer Inchcape, followed by video games retailer Game Group. Also doing well were sporting goods retailer Sports Direct International

Sterling fell back on Wednesday after the budget speech revealed the unhealthy state of public finances and the UK borrowing requirements for the coming fiscal year

Pound/US dollar 1.4566

Pound/Euro 1.1173

Pound/Japanese Yen 143.19

Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6979

US equities fell on Wednesday as a late sell-off in the financial sector as investor’s comments from Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, that the government wanted to retreat from the banking sector as soon as possible.

The Dow Jones Average dropped 83 points to close at 7886.57. Nasdaq rose by 2 points to close at 1645.85

Markets in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed again.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 added 0.18 percent to 8,727.3 but the Topix index was down 0.09 percent to 829.96 and the Mothers market dropped 0.26 percent to 321.84.

Crude oil prices were lower right after the US Energy Information Precious metals prices were up but copper declined, while grains prices were mixed on the Chicago Board of Trade.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that they had revised their predictions and that the global economy is set to decline by 1.3% in 2009, instead of their original prediction of half a percent.

They also narrowed down their predictions to announce that major economies such as Germany, Japan and Italy will shrink in 2009 by an average of five percent.

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Tags: Alastair Darling, Budget, Economics, Economy, Employment, Financial News, Small Businesses, UK Small Business

Unbelievable though it may sound, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling is expected to announce a further set of bank guarantees, this time for mortgage backed bonds. The strategy behind Alisdair’s thinking appears to be that the guarantees will allow banks to sell their securities without the risk of making a loss, in the hope of reviving lending in the mortgage sector.

It is expected that Chancellor Darling will announce in his eagerly awaited budget speech today, that the treasury will be offering guarantees for up to 50 billion pounds of the bonds through a new mechanism, to be established.

Treasury officials expect that banks will be slow to take up the offer and instead prefer and instead to more make use of some of easier to operate lending options already available.

While as yet there is no official confirmation available that the plan will go ahead, it is anticipated that the Treasury intend to provide as many options to attract investors back to the property market, and Darling has chosen his budget speech to confirm this. In the recent past, investors have steered clear of mortgage backed bonds and other hard-to-value assets in the wake of bitter experience after the international money markets went belly up in 2007.

Currently sales of mortgage backed securities have hit rock bottom in 2009, where in 2007 they had reached around 80 billion pounds worldwide. The reason for Darling’s generous offer may well stem from the fact that investors are demanding rates as higher than three percent above bank rates to take on mortgage backed bonds, and hopefully the fact that the loans will be guaranteed will reduce these rates.

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Tags: Alastair Darling, Budget, Credit Crunch, Economics, Economy, Financial News, Gordon Brown, Recession, UK Recession

All eyes are on budget predictions, and how far will Chancellor Alastair Darling veer away from his Pre-Budget Report made last November. He has already hinted strongly that his forecast that the economy would contract by less than 2% in 2009, now looks to be almost double that figure. He also announced during the same report that the government could raise £1.6 billion through introducing an income tax rate rising to 45% on incomes above £150,000, to begin from April 2011. In light of the fact that the Treasury needs to raise income and soon, economic pundits appear to be united and unwavering in their opinion that the increase would be “difficult to avoid”

However they also appear to agree on the fact that the Government’s plans to raise income tax rates are highly unlikely to raise the much needed £1.6 billion, and indeed may create an opposite effect.

According to a recent study, increased taxation may well bring a spiral of tax avoidance and/or people from reducing their taxable income

The report also points out that even if the Treasury has judged the situation correctly in how the UK’s largest earner will respond to the rate increase, the reform is liable to only raise around one third of the desired amount, taking into account the loss indirect tax revenues.

The report goes on to point out that the optimal figure that the Treasury could expect to raise would be around one billion pounds, and only if they raised the tax rate to a flat 54%. Simply by increasing the marginal tax rate on incomes above £150,000 would be around £900 million, and that would require an income tax rate of 54%.

Taking history into account and recent history at that, the Treasury needs look no further than the late 1980s. It was discovered then that the 45% band actually reduced revenue for the Government, albeit slightly. Then as now, imposing a 40% income tax rate was found to be the niche that generates the most revenue.

There are no shortages of ways to reduce the levels of income tax to be paid, with many people turning to working less, contributing more to a tax-free private pension among others. Higher, or some may even say prohibitive tax rates might even lead to migration, especially in these days of global economies, or even earlier retirement. Or a mixture of both.

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Tags: Alastair Darling, British Economy, Budget, Economics, Financial News, Tax, UK Recession

You may love him or you may hate him, but one thing is for sure, not many UK citizens would like to be in Alistair Darling’s shoes on Wednesday when he makes his eagerly awaited budget speech.

Chancellor Darling is expected to announce spending cuts of around some £15billion of over the next few years, hopefully while making the entire financial apparatus based around Whitehall much slimmer and even meaner.

Financial analysts are predicting that the Darling’s budget statement will reveal the full extent of public borrowing this year, with has a potential of reaching more than £160billion. In honest truth, there will be very few pleasant surprises around this year’s UK budget for the man in the street. Alistair Darling’s statement is expected to announce that the fiscal deficit for 2008/09 has reached the £90billion mark, which is more than six percent of the Gross Domestic Production (GDP). If that wasn’t bad enough, experts predict that the figure will have reached about £174bn by this time next year, equivalent to a staggering 12.4pc of GDP.

Needless to say, the UK public are howling for blood, with the opposition Conservative party stating that Darling’s Budget is the equivalent of a “day of reckoning” with the Labour Party having led the UK into the worst economic crisis that it has known for decades.

Yet despite the constant flow of depressing predictions that are expected to reach fever pitch by Wednesday, there are those that continue to announce that the UK economy is no longer in free fall and that the beginning of a recovery should be felt by the spring of 2010. Hiding behind that well know cliché” it has to get better worse before it can get better, the same financial analysts are more certain in their predictions that the UK economy will contract by as much as by 3.5% this year and by an encouraging 0.1% in 2010.

In his Budget statement, Alistair Darling is expected to at least agree with the more unpleasant side of the prediction, that the UK economy will contract by around about 3% this year, a rapid turnaround from his November 2008 forecast in which he announced that the economy will “only” fall between 0.75% to 1.25%.

In fact, it seems that just about every set of statistics released these days in the UK provides an opportunity for interpretation, depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. The news that UK retail sales fell in March 2009 compared with figures issued by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) a year earlier, seems like a very obvious victory for the pessimist.

Like-for-like sales fell 1.2%, making for the ninth fall in sales in the past 10 months, with the explanation that due to continued economic uncertainty. Leading consumers had no option to tighten their belts. For the optimists, there was some light in the fact that fall was made worse due to the fact that Easter fell in April this year but during March in 2009, meaning that, March’s figures did not include the traditional boost from Easter sales. If they had, the figures would have been much higher, resulting in a victory for the optimist, at least until this time next month.

Another reason for optimism came with the news that UK local councils who rather unwisely invested hundreds of millions of taxpayer’ money in Icelandic banks have been given some cautious indications that they may succeed in recovering a healthy percentage of the money. The reasons being that banks in Iceland, who were taken over by the authorities when the country’s financial system collapsed in October 2008, have appointed administrators to sort out the bank’s muddled affairs. It now transpires that the administrators have indicated its creditors could get up to 80% of funds invested back with initial

payments expected towards the end of July and August.

London-listed Chesnara Plc announced on Friday that has acquired the life insurance operations of Swedish financial services company Modern Finance AB.

Chesnara, owner of Countrywide Assured Plc, paid out twenty million pounds cash in cash for Moderna Life, a sum that represents a 63% discount from the book value of the unit as calculated at the end of 2008

Moderna Finance has been under the control of Icelandic bank Islandsbanki, who were recently nationalised, following the collapsed of Icelandic investment company Milestone.

Chesnara announced that Moderna Life’s activities will complement its UK business, as well as being an opportunity to grow a new division within the group.

Equities markets saw gains Friday, helped by gains in the banking sector after US bank Citigroup (NYSE: C) said that it only lost 18 cents per share in the first quarter, a better performance than analysts had anticipated.

In London on Friday the FTSE continued its steady climb with Lloyds Banking Group and RBS both doing well

British investor in leveraged buyouts, Candover Investments were said to be discussing bids received for the group, which put itself up for sale last year. The news saw their shares rising by 5.3 percent (11.75 pence to 234.25)

The world’s second-biggest drug maker GlaxoSmithKline appeared to be drawing nearer an agreement to acquire Stiefel Laboratories Inc. for about $3 billion. The shares rose by 0.3 percent (3 pence to 1,038)

Showing that progress nearly always pays dividends was the news that the London Stock Exchange Group Plc, who operate of the London and Milan bourses may announce who will be the technology providers for its Baikal pan-European trading system sometime this week, The shares rose 1.8 percent ( 12 pence to 689) in anticipation.

The FTSE 250 closed up 65 points at 7307.63 while the FTSE 100 finished the session 3.9 per cent, or 156.5 points, higher at 4,209.

Sterling fell slightly against the dollar and the Euro and rose slightly against the Japanese Yen and the Swiss Franc:

Pound/US dollar 1.4716

Pound/Euro 1.1333

Pound/Japanese Yen 127.58

Pound/Swiss Franc 1.6425

Wall Street shares had another steady day on trading before closing down for the weekend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 5.9 points to close at 8,133.33 while the NASDAQ crept up 2.63 points to 1,673.07

The continued optimism was largely down to Citigroup, who reported their first quarterly net profit in nearly two years, becoming the latest US bank to see an improvement in its performance.

Citigroup made a profit of £1.1billion ($1.6bn) compared with a loss of $5.1bn a year earlier. Revenues rose a commendable 99% to $24.8bn.

Shares in the bank initially rose, before falling backwards, closing 9% lower at $3.65 in New York.

Better than expected results also came from conglomerate General Electric, who reported a 40 per cent drop in first quarter earnings, beating analysts’ expectations of an even steeper decline?

Markets in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 added 1.74 percent to 8,907.58 while the Topix index was 1.63 percent higher to 845.57 and the Mothers market gained 1.44 percent to 319.63.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX200 was up 0.03 percent to 3,776.7 and the Sydney Ordinaries added 0.07 percent to 3,728.1, while the Hang Seng was 0.12 percent.

Crude oil prices were a bit higher but precious metals and grains declined on the session.

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Tags: Alastair Darling, Budget, Credit Crunch, Economy, Financial News