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The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had improved in December, edged up slightly in January. The Index now stands at 110.3 (1985=100), up from 110.0 in December. The Present Situation Index increased to 133.9 from 130.5. The Expectations Index, however, declined to 94.5 from 96.3 last month.

Fitch Ratings says in a special report issued today that the credit profiles of auto manufacturers in Asia, Western Europe and the US are extremely diverse with varying outlooks for 2007. The outlook for the Japanese auto industry is positive, while that for the U.S. car industry remains negative. The outlooks for the South Korean and Chinese auto industries are stable despite challenges expected in the domestic and overseas markets. European original equipment manufacturers ("OEMs") also face a broadly stable outlook, although this is at risk from unfavourable foreign exchange rates, heavy regulations and high raw material prices.

In the OECD area, consumer prices rose by 2.3% in the year to December 2006, compared with 2.0% in the year to November 2006. On a monthly basis, the price level rose by 0.2% in December 2006 after 0.0% between October and November 2006.

The worldwide mobile phone market reached a new milestone at the close of 2006, with more than one billion units shipped worldwide over the year. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 1.019 billion units in 2006, or 22.5% more than the 832.8 million units they shipped in 2005.

The U.S. leads the world in saving for retirement according to a global retirement survey by AXA Equitable, an AXA Group company. U.S. workers save on average $696 a month for retirement, more than double the amount saved by workers in Germany, Italy and France, and nearly 10 times the amount saved by workers in China. Eight of 10 working Americans surveyed have already started saving for retirement.

The global information and communications technology (ICT) industry has provided the supporting infrastructure for economic growth across the world in the last decade. Despite the downward trend in the industry following the dot com crash, the ICT industry continues to show enormous potential.

While the global VoIP monitoring solutions market was in its infancy in 2004, the market experienced strong growth in 2005, to almost double in size. Although uptake was clearly stronger in the service provider vertical market, vendors that typically cater to service providers and carriers have noticed an emerging demand from the enterprise market for their solutions, as compared to 2004.

Merchandise trade exports in the Group of Seven countries fell a seasonally-adjusted 0.4% in the third quarter of 2006 compared with the second quarter, while import growth stagnated at 1.3%. On a year-to-year basis, G7 trade volumes continued to grow, with exports 10.4% higher and imports up 6.4%.

About 60% of all the energy used in the world comes from burning oil and natural gas. Despite massive exploration programs, few large outfields have been found in recent years.

The top economic growth and fiscal performances in 2007 are likely to be from countries outside the ranks of the most developed Western nations, according to a new set of sovereign risk forecasts from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.