The German government insisted Thursday that Europe's biggest economy could "look to the future with optimism", despite recent disappointing economic data and falling confidence.

"2013 will be a good year," Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said, unveiling a slight upgrade in Berlin's growth forecast for the current year to 0.5 percent from a previous prognosis of 0.4 percent.

China agreed to buy 60 Airbus planes in a memorandum of understanding signed Thursday by French President Francois Hollande and Chinese President Xi Jinping in front of reporters.

A significant portion of the planes would be manufactured in China at an Airbus factory in Tianjin, 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the capital, an industry source told Agence France Presse on condition on anonymity.

Indonesian investigators have arrived in Washington to quiz a World Bank managing director as a witness over a bank bailout that led her to quit as finance minister, an official said Thursday.

Sri Mulyani Indrawati, once considered Indonesia's top reformist, was among several officials who authorized the rescue of the mid-sized Bank Century, which was bailed out during the onset of the financial crisis in 2008.

Cyprus's cabinet on Wednesday approved the island's 10-billion-euro EU-IMF bailout deal that will now be tabled before parliament for a vote expected to be held before mid-May.

"The Cabinet has approved the loan agreement and the Memorandum to be forwarded to parliament for a preliminary discussion at committee level," government spokesman Christos Stylianides told reporters.

The UAE's giant telecom operator, Etisalat, said it will submit on Wednesday a bid to buy Vivendi's 53-percent stake in Morocco's operator Maroc Telecom.

Emirates Telecommunications Corp "will submit today a binding offer to Vivendi Group to acquire all its shares in Itissalat Al-Maghrib (Maroc Telecom)," the group said in a statement to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.

The board of Indian carrier Jet Airways said Wednesday it had agreed to sell a near 32 percent stake in the group to Abu Dhabi-based Etihad in a deal worth 20.4 billion rupees ($380 million).

The acquisition, which still needs to be approved by Jet shareholders, would be the first between an existing Indian carrier and a foreign airline since the government eased restrictions on foreign investment in September last year.

National Mobile Telecommunications Co of Kuwait (Wataniya) reported Wednesday a 31.1 percent slide in net profit in the first quarter of 2013 due to competition and tough economic conditions.

Wataniya, in which Qatar's Qtel owns 92.1 percent, posted 19.5 million dinars ($68.7 million) in the first three months of 2013 compared to 28.3 million dinars ($99.6 million) a year ago, the company said in a statement.

Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse on Wednesday said its first quarter profit rose sharply to 1.303 billion Swiss francs (1.1 billion euros, $1.38 billion) from 44 million francs a year ago.

The significant jump in net profit is largely because the bank was weighed down by an accounting loss on its own debt during the same period last year.

A consortium of Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and France's Areva are on track to win a deal to build a $20 billion nuclear power station in Turkey, a report said on Wednesday.

The top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo would likely sign the deal with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a visit to Turkey next week as part of a four-nation trip that ends on May 4.

Iran's Finance Minister Shamseddin Hosseini said Tuesday that international sanctions had pushed inflation above 30% and was causing "a lot of trouble" but that Iran's nuclear drive would not be halted.

Lashing out at measures by the United Nations, United States and European Union, Hosseini said the Iranian economy was increasingly gearing up to produce at home the goods that it cannot import.