Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways said Sunday it has entered the final stage of an assessment whether to purchase a stake in Italy's debt-laden airline Alitalia.
The two carriers "have entered the final phase of a due diligence process about a possible investment by Etihad Airways in Alitalia," confirmed James Hogan, chief executive of Etihad Airways, and Gabriele Del Torchio, his Alitalia counterpart, according to a statement by Etihad.

China's official gauge of its manufacturing sector slipped to a five-month low in January, the government announced Saturday, confirming a slowdown in factory activity in the world's second largest economy.
The monthly purchasing managers' index (PMI) declined to 50.5 in January after recording 51 in December and 51.4 in November, according to the government's National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

Taiwan said Saturday a record 2.85 million Chinese nationals visited the island last year, up ten percent from 2012 although group arrivals dropped slightly after Beijing enacted a tourism law.
The number of solo Chinese travelers surged 174 percent to 522,000 people compared with 191,000 in 2012, the government said.

Russia's economy chief said on Friday that the country had survived the worst of its sharp growth slowdown and was on the path toward cautious expansion in the coming year.
Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said he thought Russia's $1.1-trillion economy had suffered its most dire phase in the fall of 2013 and that agriculture and industry were now both picking up steam.

Eurozone inflation fell to 0.7 percent in January from 0.8 percent in December, official data showed on Thursday amid concerns that falling prices could undermine growth.
A flash estimate from the Eurostat statistics office showed year-on-year inflation in the 18-nation eurozone dropping from 2.0 percent in January 2013 after falling steadily in recent months.

Spanish banking group BBVA, one of the nation's largest, announced Friday a 33-percent leap in net profit for 2013 despite suffering losses in the final quarter.
BBVA said net profit for the whole of 2013 climbed 32.9 percent year-over-year to 2.23 billion euros ($3 billion), as it joined a recovery in the top ranks of the Spanish banking sector.

Google is finally ready to split its stock for the first time, more than three years after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin began discussing a move engineered to ensure they remain in control of the Internet's most powerful company.
The split is scheduled to occur April 2. It had been delayed because of staunch resistance from other Google Inc. shareholders, who feared the maneuver would unfairly benefit Page and Brin at the expense of just about everyone else.

Tunisia's economy minister has announced that the International Monetary fund has released half a billion dollars in delayed funding following the formation of the country's new interim government.
Hakim Ben Hammouda told the state news agency that the IMF had agreed late Wednesday to release $507 million dollars that had originally been promised in September.

Facebook said Wednesday that profit soared in 2013 on the back of sizzling mobile ad revenue as the social network's membership swelled.
The world's biggest social network reported that profit in the fourth quarter jumped eightfold from a year earlier to $523 million, raising its net income for the year to $1.5 billion.

Germany's unemployment rate was steady in January, as the labor market continues to hold up thanks to the improving economic outlook, official data showed on Thursday.
The number of people registered as unemployed in Europe's top economy fell by 28,0000 in seasonally adjusted terms this month, the Federal Labor Office said in a statement.
