European finance ministers will try on Monday to give new momentum to talks on a Greek debt relief deal that is crucial to avoid a default, but a European diplomat warned that a final agreement may have to wait until a leaders' summit next week.

A deal would see Greece's private creditors — banks and other investment firms — swap their Greek bonds for ones with a 50 percent lower value, thereby cutting the country's debt pile by some €100 billion ($129 billion). The new bonds will also have much longer maturities, pushing repayments decades into the future, and a much lower interest rate then Greece would currently have to pay on the market.

Oil fell to near $98 a barrel Monday in Asia as the crude market waited for the outcome of Greece's negotiations with creditors on a deal to cut the face value of its debt by half.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was down 15 cents at $98.19 a barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $2.21 to end at $98.33 per barrel in New York on Friday.

Europe's biggest automaker Volkswagen will likely this year complete its takeover of luxury car group Porsche after clearing key hurdles, according to a German media report on Sunday.

News weekly Der Spiegel writes in its upcoming issue that VW, which owns 49.9 percent of Porsche, may buy the 50.1-percent stake in the manufacturer of the iconic 911 car for 3.9 billion euros ($5.0 billion) in 2012.

Amid all the gloom and doom over debt-stricken Portugal there is a ray of light -- shoemaking, one of the oldest and most traditional industries, had a record year in 2011 on strong exports.

The shoemaker companies, which sell nearly all their production overseas, registered 17 percent growth last year, according to industry group APICCAPS.

Output by Italian oil giant ENI, the top producer of Libyan crude, has nearly reached its levels prior to the war last year that ousted Moammar Gadhafi, its chief Paolo Scaroni said Saturday.

"We are almost where we were. We are producing 270,000 barrels per day now against 280,000 before the revolution," Scaroni told reporters in Tripoli where he arrived as part of a delegation of visiting Italian premier Mario Monti.

The G20 group of powerful economies agrees on the need to boost IMF resources but has not yet discussed figures, according to a meeting of deputy finance ministers and central bankers Friday.

The IMF's bid to raise its lending capacity by up to $500 billion, announced this week, was high on the agenda for members of 19 major economies and the European Union meeting in Mexico City amid the continuing European debt crisis.

Eastman Kodak Co. has a little over a year to reshape its money-losing businesses and deliver a get-out-of-bankruptcy plan.

Girded by a $950 million financing deal with Citigroup Inc., the photography pioneer aims to keep operating normally during bankruptcy while it peddles a trove of digital-imaging patents.

Europe has taken a step back from the brink.

Three weeks into the year, borrowing rates for debt-saddled countries have fallen to more manageable levels. Auctions of government debt have gone better, a sign of increased investor confidence.

Oil prices were higher in Asian trade Friday as a weaker U.S. currency encouraged buying of the dollar-priced commodity.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in February, was up 26 cents to $100.65 a barrel in the afternoon.

Asian markets rose for a fourth straight day Friday on strong French and Spanish bond sales, the lowest U.S. jobs claims for almost four years and hopes Greece will agree a debt deal with its creditors.

The euro also strengthened against the dollar and the yen as fears over the Eurozone crisis abated while financial plays were lifted by more upbeat earnings reports from U.S. banks.