China became one of the world's top three investors for the first time last year as its foreign investment soared to a new record, the government said Monday.

The Asian giant's overseas direct investment rose 17.6 percent last year from 2011 to $87.8 billion, according to a statement jointly released by the Ministry of Commerce, the National Bureau of Statistics and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has warned against instability as a parliamentary committee prepares for a debate starting Monday on Silvio Berlusconi's expulsion from the Senate following his criminal conviction.

The case has put on edge an uneasy governing coalition made up of Letta's center-left Democratic Party (PD) and Berlusconi's center-right People of Freedom (PDL) party in what is the eurozone's third biggest economy.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras says six years of recession that have plunged Greece into its deepest crisis in many decades will end next year and the country will reach pre-crisis, and probably higher, levels of prosperity by 2020.

Opening up the annual international trade fair in Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, Samaras said Saturday the bulk of the effort to get the country out of the crisis has been done and that revenue will exceed spending in 2013, excluding debt repayment.

Argentina has urged a U.S. appeals court to reconsider an order for the country to pay in full holders of $1.47 billion in defaulted debt.

In a petition filed Friday, Argentina pointed to "grave legal errors" in last month's 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that ordered Buenos Aires to pay the money to two hedge funds that refused to participate in two debt restructurings.

There's never a good time to change the head of the U.S. central bank, according to Ethan Harris, who wrote "Ben Bernanke's Fed" about the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

But it's even more the case currently as Bernanke appears poised to depart in January, even though the U.S. economy remains weakened by the financial crisis that erupted five years ago.

Cypriot MPs early Friday finally approved two bills on restructuring the banking sector after first rejecting them and endangering the next tranche of the country's 10-billion-euro ($13.1-billion) bailout.

During a marathon session on Thursday, parliament passed all of the other 12 bills required by the European Union and International Monetary Fund needed for a green light to be given at a September 13 Eurogroup meeting for the island's second tranche of 1.5 billion euros to be released.

Oil prices were flat in Asian trade Friday as investors tracked developments surrounding a looming military strike against Syria and awaited the release of U.S. jobs data, analysts said.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in October, was up two cents to $108.39 in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude for October added one cent to $115.27.

Germany's trade surplus narrowed in July as exports weakened, data published by the federal statistics office Destatis showed on Friday.

In seasonally adjusted terms, Germany exported goods worth 90.3 billion euros ($118.6 billion) in July, down from 91.2 billion euros in June, Destatis calculated in a statement.

Hong Kong's de-facto central bank warned Friday that the city must not "sit on its laurels" if it wants to remain a global financial center after plans for China's first free trade zone were revealed.

Draft proposals for the free trade zone (FTZ) in Shanghai, seen by Agence France Presse, showed that the zone goes beyond greater liberalization of trade to take in investment and financial services -- including free currency convertibility.

The Turkish lira fell to another record low level against the dollar on Thursday, and the government said it would revise down its forecast for growth this year.

The lira fell to 2.0800 to the dollar in morning trading, from 2.0580 at Wednesday's close.