Cyprus authorities have dropped controls on money transfers and withdrawals for international clients of four foreign banks with branches or subsidiaries in the bailed-out country.

The Finance Ministry said in a statement Friday that the exemption extends to the Cyprus branches of Lebanon's BLOM Bank, the Lebanese and Gulf Bank, Russia's OJSC Promsvyazbank and Russian Commercial Bank.

Preliminary surveys of Lebanese offshore fields show reserves of 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 660 million barrels of oil, caretaker Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil said on Thursday, adding that production could begin within four years.

Speaking at the Arab Economic Forum, Bassil said scanning was now complete on 70 percent of the country's territorial waters -- an area of some 15,000 square kilometers (5,791 square miles).

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta on Friday called for the European Union summit in June to adopt a strategy to combat youth unemployment with concrete measures to be implemented immediately.

"Europe has to provide answers on youth unemployment," Letta said after talks in Rome with European Parliament speaker Martin Schulz.

North Korean visits to China have multiplied over recent years, a Chinese newspaper reported, underscoring growing political and business links between the isolated nuclear-armed state and its sole major ally.

There were a total of 180,600 visits by North Koreans to China in 2012, nearly twice as many as the 103,900 only three years previously, the investigative Southern Weekly said in its latest edition, citing official data.

Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of Seven leading economies will meet in the English countryside on Friday for talks on spurring growth, amid U.S.-Europe divisions over the scale of austerity.

The G7 -- comprising Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States -- is expected to build on last month's wider Group of 20 meeting, while looking ahead to next month's G8 heads of state summit in Northern Ireland.

German exports, the driving force of Europe's top economy, are being weighed down by the eurozone debt crisis, data showed Friday, amid otherwise promising signs.

Seasonally adjusted data showed that Germany's trade surplus fell slightly in March to 17.6 billion euros ($23.0 billion) from 17.7 billion euros in February, according to figures from the federal statistics office.

Australia's central bank scaled back its forecasts Friday, warning of muted growth and a "subdued" outlook as the commodities-driven economy transitions away from mining.

The Reserve Bank of Australia said it expected growth of 2.5 percent and inflation of 2.25 percent for the year ended December 31, compared with 2.0-3.0 percent for both forecast in February.

Thousands of striking students and teachers protested across crisis-wracked Spain Thursday against spending cuts they say are destroying the country's public education system.

In Madrid the protesters, many of them wearing green T-shirts that have become a symbol of their movement against the budget cuts, marched to the education ministry where they called on Education Minister Jose Ignacio Wert to resign.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday launched yet another effort to pressure Congress to act on his plans to invest in education and innovation to create a new generation of high-paying jobs.

Obama flew to Texas to highlight school and industry programs seen as a model method of firming up sluggish growth and taking aim at unemployment, which remains at 7.5 percent more than four years into his presidency.

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday said it would likely disburse its first bailout loan to Cyprus after next week's board meeting.

The IMF executive board is expected to discuss the bailout program for Cyprus on Wednesday, Fund spokesman Gerry Rice said at a regularly scheduled news conference.