Principal news stories from the Irish Independent, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Financial Times and New York Times.

Ireland is one of a small number of the 24 rich countries of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that has suffered the worst of the global recession but it is striking that beyond short-term measures to correct the public finance imbalances, there is no evidence of serious interest in fundamental reform among the political class nor is there public pressure for change. Given the largely avoidable economic calamity, and the overwhelming dependence on foreign firms to deliver long-term prosperity, with the exception of the new reforming leadership at the Central Bank, it’s mainly business as usual elsewhere. It’s a valid question to ask, if an unreformed Ireland is destined to be another failed rich State like Japan?

Japan’s manufacturing continued to improve in January but new business growth was weak. At 52.5, the seasonally adjusted Nomura/JMMA PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) pointed to a moderate improvement in operating conditions in the Japanese manufacturing sector at the start of 2010. Japan’s industrial production  rose 2.2% in December 2009, from a month earlier, according to official figures released in Tokyo today. Exports to China climbed 42.8% last month, led by record demand for cars. Another report showed that household spending rose 2.1% in December from a year before and the economy added 130,000 jobs in December.

Ernst & Young in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), issued a report late Thursday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It highlights how globalisation slowed during the financial crisis and the subsequent downturn. But as the economy recovers in 2010 the growth of globalisation will once again resume, although at a slower pace than in the past decade, the report predicts. Singapore, Hong Kong and Ireland are the top globalised economies.

Based on preliminary data the world trade volume expanded by 1.1% in November from the previous month, following an increase of 1.4% in October (revised upward from 0,8%), according to the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. World import volumes increased by 2.6% in November whereas world export volumes declined by 0.3%. The CPB says this discrepancy is fully reflected in (partly estimated) diverging price trends. In November, trade was still 12% below the peak level reached in April 2008.

A growing number of investors are betting that the fears are overstated and interest rates won’t soar when the Central Bank ends its $1.25 trillion mortgage-buying spree in just over two months.

Markets news on stocks, currencies and oil; European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet on Thursday said Greece’s present economic troubles are common to other advanced states. Speaking on the same panel as Trichet today in Davos, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said that Greece has “not asked for money anywhere else.” He added: “We are in a jittery time” in which “rumours can create problems.”  Also in Davos, former US President Bill Clinton and UN Special Envoy to Haiti made a robust call for immediate aid and sustained investment to assist Haiti. Clinton was joined on the Davos panel by Irish businessman Denis O’Brien, Chairman of mobile phone company Digicel, which operates in Haiti.

Eurozone confidence surveys issued today, point to continued optimism in January 2009.

New orders for US manufactured durable goods - -  expected to last at least three years  –  in December increased $0.5 billion or 0.3 per cent  to $167.9 billion, the US Census Bureau announced today. This increase followed two consecutive monthly decreases including a 0.4 per cent  November decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 0.9 per cent . Excluding defense, new orders increased 0.3 per cent . Machinery, up three of the last four months, had the largest increase, $1.4 billion or 6.0 per cent  to $24.1 billion.  Meanwhile, the number of US workers filing new claims for jobless benefits fell slightly last week, the Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday.

In the third quarter of 2009, in both the Eurozone (EA16) and the EU27, the seasonally adjusted household saving rate decreased and the household investment rate was almost unchanged. The Eurozone savings rate was 15.8% compared with 4.7% in the US in November 2009 up from below zero in 2005 and a Japanese savings rate of about 2%, impacted by an ageing population and over a third of the workforce on temporary contracts, down from over 10% a decade ago.