Business torrents

China will roll out measures to boost consumption this year as it strives to meet challenges posed by a global slowdown, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said.

The government is studying policies to encourage spending on energy-saving products, and will take other measures including the promotion of online shopping and tourism, Chen told the ministry

Hungary’s top financial negotiator said his nation is open to working out a standby loan with the International Monetary Fund but insisted Thursday that Hungary was still able to finance its debts from the markets.

That situation could change soon. Hungary’s debt management agency sold less than the full amount on offer at an auction Thursday of 12-month Treasury bills, with the average yield rising to 9.96 percent _ more than 2 percentage points higher than at a similar auction Dec. 22. That is also significantly higher than the 7 percent level that forced three other European nations to seek bailouts.

With Hungary’s credit rating cut to junk status by two U.S. ratings agencies late last year and possible recession looming in 2012, the country’s finances are on the edge. It has been hard hit by the debt crisis in the eurozone _ by far its biggest export market _ and the government has struggled to boost economic growth in the face of anemic domestic consumption and large debt burdens in both the public and private sectors.

“I can negotiate a safety net for Hungary, a financial solution with reasonable conditions we can agree to. This was never in doubt,” negotiator Tamas Fellegi declared.

“The determined will of the government is to achieve a fast agreement” with the IMF and the European Union, Fellegi said. “The government is aware of the severity of the situation and what is at stake in the IMF negotiations.”

Fellegi insisted that the IMF-EU aid would be used only if it became too expensive for Hungary to raise money from the markets _ but the bond auction indicated that time could be very near.

In 2008, Hungary accepted an IMF bailout of euro20 billion ($26 billion), but in 2010, under the leadership of conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban, it chose not to renew the deal.

Official figures released Thursday showed a drop in the unemployment rate _ to 10.6 percent from 10.8 percent _ while state debts totaled 82.6 percent of gross domestic product at the end of September, the highest in Eastern Europe, up from 76.8 percent at the end of June.

The rising debt level could be attributed partly to unfavorable changes in the forint’s exchange rate. Since roughly half of Hungary’s debts are in foreign currencies, a weaker forint drives up the debt measured in the Hungarian currency.

Fellegi’s statements, especially that a standby deal was in the cards instead of just a basic safety credit line, pointed to a softening in the government’s position that it was looking for a deal without forfeiting the right to keep its full independence on economic policy.

“Fellegi’s words … seem to have calmed sentiments somewhat,” said analyst Gabor Ambrus at London’s 4Cast, while adding that it was probably “just a minor respite.”

Fellegi said Hungary would be willing to discuss all the issues _ such as new laws seen curtailing the independence of the central bank _ that have sparked strong criticism from the IMF and the EU, among others.

“We are ready for unconditional talks,” Fellegi said. “Any contested issue … can be solved at the negotiating table.”

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Well, that didn’t take long.

Verizon said Friday that it was scrapping a controversial $2 fee for one-time bill payments announced just a day earlier. The announcement had immediately sparked an uproar online from customers irate about the prospect of incurring further fees simply by paying existing ones.

"At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time," Verizon CEO Dan Mead said in a statement.

The so-called "convenience charge" was to have gone into effect Jan. 15. It would have applied to customers who make one-time bill payments using debit or credit cards, either online or by telephone, though the company had planned to continue offering a variety of other free payment methods.

Earlier Friday, the Federal Communications Commission said it was "concerned about Verizon’s actions" regarding the proposed new fee and was "looking into the matter."

Customers took to the Web to voice their frustrations with Verizon (, Fortune 500) following Thursday’s announcement. A petition against the new fee on Change.org had attracted over 60,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon.

2011: The year of annoying fees

Verizon’s quick turnaround was reminiscent of that of Bank of America (, Fortune 500) and a number of other large financial institutions that were forced to cancel proposed fees for debit card use this fall in response to a backlash from customers.

Elsewhere in the telecoms industry, a Sprint (, Fortune 500) spokesman said Thursday that the company does not have fees similar to the one Verizon proposed, though according to Sprint’s website, certain customers who have accounts with spending limits are subject to a $5 monthly fee if they’re not enrolled in automatic payments.

AT&T (, Fortune 500) "does not charge customers a fee like" what Verizon had proposed, a spokeswoman said. T-Mobile charges customers $5 if they make payments over the phone with a company representative. 

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U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron pledged more action to deal with

U.K. house prices (UKNBAAMM) may decline in 2012 as economic turmoil emanating from the euro area

The Sears in the Crestwood Court mall will close, the department store chain confirmed today.

A timeline for the closure was not released by the company, Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Sears Holdings. The company said each store typically has between 40 and 80 employees.

The Crestwood Court Sears store is one of 79 Sears and Kmart stores on a closure list released today. Sears announced Monday that it would close up to 120 Sears and Kmart stores across the country, but it did not identify the locations until today. The remaining store closure locations have not yet been identified.

Elsewhere in Missouri, a Sears Grand/Essentials store in Lee’s Summit will close payday advance. No Illinois Sears or Kmart stores were on the initial list of closures released today.

Sears’ St. Louis metro area stores are located in Crestwood Court, South County Center, St. Clair Square, Alton Square Mall, Chesterfield Mall and Mid Rivers Mall. There are more than a dozen Kmart stores in the region.

The Sears at Crestwood Court is the last anchor department store at the mall at 109 Crestwood Plaza in south St. Louis County. In recent years, most retailers have vacated the property.

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U.S. stocks were set to open higher, as investors digest reports on personal spending and income, and await more housing data.

The Dow Jones industrial average (), S&P 500 () and Nasdaq () futures were higher ahead of the opening bell. Stock futures indicate the possible direction of the markets when they open at 9:30 a.m. ET.

On Thursday, stocks finished a quiet session higher, after a stronger-than-expected reading on unemployment boosted investor optimism.

The government reported that the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits dropped to its lowest level since April 2008. There were 364,000 initial jobless claims last week, 4,000 fewer than the week prior.

What the payroll tax deal would do

Investors got more good news after Thursday’s market close, as House Speaker John Boehner said that he would accept a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, a move that ensures taxes will not increase on Jan. 1.

The source of much angst on Capitol Hill in recent weeks, economists viewed the scheduled tax increase as a significant potential drag on the economy in the first quarter of next year fast cash online.

World markets: European stocks were higher in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 () ticked up 1%, the DAX () in Germany added 0.4% and France’s CAC 40 () gained 1.2%.

Asian markets ended higher, with Tokyo closed for holiday. The Shanghai Composite () rose 0.9% and the Hang Seng () in Hong Kong jumped 1.4%.

Economy: Before the opening bell, the Commerce Department reported durable goods rose 3.8% in November. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected durable goods to rise 2.0%.

Both personal income and personal spending rose 0.1% in November. After the opening bell, a report on new home sales will be issued.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar lost strength against the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen.

Oil for February delivery rose 46 cents to $99.86 a barrel.

Gold futures for February delivery fell $2.70 to $1,607.70 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury was little changed, with the yield holding steady at 1.95% from late Thursday.  

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The sinking of a floating oil rig that left more than 50 crew dead or missing is intensifying fears that Russian companies searching for oil in remote areas are unprepared for emergencies _ and could cause a disastrous spill in the pristine waters of the Arctic.

Only four months ago, Russian energy giant Gazprom sent Russia’s first oil platform to the environmentally sensitive region, and industry experts and environmentalists warned it is unfit for the harsh conditions and is too far from rescue crews to be reached quickly in case of an accident. They are demanding Russia put Arctic oil projects on hold.

Russia is the world’s largest oil producer, but it extracts most of its oil onshore, with no more than 2 percent of its production coming from mature offshore fields in the warm Black and Caspian seas and relatively new fields just off Sakhalin Island in the far east.

As Russia’s core oil fields in Eastern Siberia are depleted, companies are looking north. The government hopes that up to 80 million tons of oil will be produced annually in the Arctic by 2030.

Russia is trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to hold up to a quarter of the Earth’s undiscovered oil and gas. By speeding up the Arctic oil project, the government is strengthening its bid.

The Kolskaya floating oil rig that capsized and sank in the Sea of Okhotsk on Dec. 18 had done exploratory drilling for Gazprom Neft Shelf, a subsidiary of Gazprom. It was being towed back to an eastern Russian port in a fierce storm when a strong wave broke some of its equipment and portholes, and it capsized in the choppy water.

Gazprom is now pioneering the oil development of Russia’s sector of the Arctic and was the first Russian company to dispatch a drilling rig to the Pechora Sea in northwest Russia.

Russian oil companies have never operated in weather conditions as harsh as those found in the ice-bound Arctic, where ice ridges are meters (yards) deep and storms are frequent. The Kolskaya accident has reinforced fears that they are unprepared to meet the challenges.

“This tragedy has once again reminded us of how high the risks of offshore accidents are,” said Alexei Knizhnikov, an oil and gas policy officer with the World Wildlife Fund.

WWF, Greenpeace and five regional Russian environmental organizations signed a petition on Thursday calling for a parliamentary investigation and urging the government to suspend the oil projects for now.

The petition accuses government agencies of failing to enforce environmental and safety regulations and says that current laws are inadequate for dealing with the magnitude of risk in the Arctic.

Environmentalists first raised their concerns when Gazprom announced in August that it was sending its platform to the Arctic for exploratory drilling in the Pechora oil field, which holds some 6.6 million tons of oil.

The platform’s underwater section was built in Russia in the 1990s, while its upper part comes from a platform built in Scotland in 1982 and decommissioned from the North Sea in 2002.

Gazprom insists the Prirazlomnaya platform, billed as the first to be ice resistant, is safe and contains no old equipment except for its frame.

“We’ve done our best to implement the latest technology and regulations to prevent any accidents,” Vladimir Vovk, chief of Gazprom’s department for the management of equipment and technologies in developing marine fields, said at a news conference in September.

Environmentalists question both the state of the equipment and the platform’s design. Because the Prirazlomnaya is situated hundreds of kilometers (miles) offshore, it is designed to store huge quantities of oil until tankers can arrive to collect it. The platform’s storage tanks can hold up to 120,000 tons (840,000 barrels).

Unlike the Kolskaya, which was carrying no oil when it sank, the Arctic platform could potentially cause a disastrous spill if it capsized in icy, rough seas.

The distance from shore would also complicate any rescue or cleanup mission. The nearest port of any size is in Murmansk, some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away.

Even in warmer, more hospitable waters, accidents at oil platforms have been disastrous.

A giant oil slick was approaching the coast of Nigeria on Friday after what Royal Dutch Shell said was a spill during the transfer of oil from its floating platform in the offshore field to a waiting tanker. The spill came less than a week after Shell received approval from the U.S. government to drill exploratory wells off Alaska’s northwest coast, in the Chukchi Sea near Russian waters.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the 2010 explosion of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and led to more than 200 million gallons (4.8 million barrels) of oil spewing from a well deep beneath the sea.

Russia’s parliament gave preliminary approval in September to a bill intended to tighten regulations on oil companies working in the Arctic.

Yekaterina Khmelyova, an environment law officer at the WWF, said the bill does not do enough to hold the oil companies publicly accountable or to guarantee a full assessment of the environmental risks. She said environmentalists and the business community are working on a new draft that among other things would provide for the creation of clean-up funds.

Oil industry experts also have expressed doubts about Gazprom’s expertise in offshore drilling in the Arctic as well as the platform’s design.

They have questioned the economic justifications for the project. The oil in the Pechora field is of low quality and the project will be loss-making without tax breaks, said Valery Nesterov, a senior analyst with the Moscow-based investment bank Troika Dialog. For state-controlled Gazprom, the Arctic project appears to be more of strategic importance than about any immediate economic benefits, he said.

“This is clearly a strategic task that the company is executing,” Nesterov said. “It looks like Russia is not going to give up that strategy since the interests of ship yards, machinery producers and, possibly, the military are involved.”

Four years ago, Russia staked its claim to supremacy in the Arctic by planting a titanium flag on the ocean floor and arguing that an underwater ridge connected the country directly to the North Pole. The United States does not recognize the Russian assertion and has its own claims, along with Denmark, Norway and Canada.

Russia, Canada and Denmark are planning to their respective file claims to the ridge to the United Nations.

In past years, Russian ship yards and machinery producers have been able to stay afloat largely thanks to large orders coming from state-owned plants and government-sponsored projects. A large-scale oil and gas development of the Arctic is likely to give a welcome boost to both industries.

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Rising interest from would-be buyers is leaving U.S. homebuilders less pessimistic about the housing market. But tighter lending standards are still keeping many potential buyers from purchasing new homes.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index rose two points to 21 in December. That’s the highest level since May 2010. It’s just the second time the index has been at 20 or above in two years.

Still, any reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the housing market. The index hasn’t reached 50 since April 2006, the peak of the housing boom.

Last year, the number of people who bought new homes fell to its lowest level on records going back nearly a half-century. The figure for 2011 will be close to that level.

Builders are struggling to compete with foreclosures, which have forced down prices of previously occupied homes. And many buyers are finding it hard to qualify for loans or meet higher required down payments.

Low appraisals are scuttling some deals after contracts have been signed. As a result, some buyers who want to buy a new house are holding off because they can’t sell their home.

Those in a position to buy are benefiting from lower prices and mortgage rates saving account payday loan. The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage is 3.94 percent, a record low. Yet so far, those factors have done little to boost home sales.

David Crowe, the builder group’s chief economist, pointed to some regional pockets of strength. New Orleans, Pittsburgh and other smaller areas, in particular, have reported increased buying.

New homes make up a small portion of housing sales. But they have an outsize impact on the economy. The builder trade group says each new home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes.

Sentiment about current single-family home sales rose two points to 22, according to a separate gauge in the survey. Builders are also more optimistic about future sales.

The outlook in the South rose four points; it ticked up one point in the West. In the Midwest, it was unchanged, and in the Northeast, sentiment fell one point.

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With Christmas less than one week away, the toy industry has no runaway hit