Debate on rates must be allowed: Italian Treasury Minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on Saturday defended the right of politicians to speak out on interest rate policy. "Central banks judge economic policy issues which are not part of their institutional powers," he was quoted as saying in an interview withn Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "So I don'T see why governments shouldn'T also makesuggestions about the monetary policy of central banks. Just because the central banks are independent, that doesn'T mean they're infallible," Ciampi said. Germany's new Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine has madewaves in the past few weeks with outspoken calls for the Bundesbank to cut interest rates to boost growth. Lafontaine is due to meet Ciampi in Rome next Thursday.KPN to buy all of Unisource: Dutch KPN Telecom is to acquire full control of Unisource Belgium, Dutch and Belgian newspapers said on Saturday. KPN Telecom currently holds a 49.6 percent stake inUnisource Belgium, which turns over some 130million Dutch guilders ($69.37 million) annually and concentrates mainly on telecommunications services to business clients, the newspapers said. The Dutch company was quoted as saying Unisource Belgiumfitted in logically with its core activities in the Netherlands and would enable it to enlarge its home market.
Germany's Telekom to cut cable fees once: Deutsche Telekom AG will not have to cut its cable television fees a second time, a German regulatory authority spokesman said on Saturday.He said the authority's decision to ask Telekom to lower itscharges by January 1, 1999 was final and would not set a precedent for further price cut demands.Telekom raised its cable TV charges by an average 15 percentin November 1997 and in April the German regulatory watch dog ordered it to cut prices by January 1, 1999.
Clinton presses Japan for 2% economic growth: US president Bill Clinton has urged Japan to achieve two per cent economic growth through aggressive stimulus measures, the Japanesenewspaper Nihon Keizai shimbun reported on Saturday. He made the request in a letter to Japanese prime minister Keizo Obuchi as they prepared to meet at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum summit in Kuala Lumpur and at bilateral talks here next week, the report said.
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