The dollar continued to slide in Asian hours trading on Monday against the euro over expectations that the Federal Reserve will stop raising interest rates soon. The euro passed through 1.22 on Monday after William Poole, chairman of the St Louis Federal Bank, said last week that he thought that the inflation environment was “stable”.

The European Commission was obliged to issue an official statement on Monday refuting press reports that the Cypriot government faces a fine for allowing medicinal products to be labelled in English. In a statement Gregor Kreuzhuber, the European Commission spokesman for Enterprise and Industiry, said “On 19 January, Cypriot media reported that the Cypriot government

Sales of personal computers in the Asia-Pacific region achieved record growth in 2005, a technology research consultancy said on Monday. Overall, Australia, China, India and South Korea were the biggest contributors, according to the report from IDC. For the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, shipments for the full year totalled 41.1 million units, 18% growth over 2004.

Egantia Financial Services have issued a positive forecast on the expected profits of Hellenic Bank, forecasting net gain of CYP 5.2 mln for 2005 compared to net losses of CYP 15.3 mln booked in 2004. The Board of Hellenic is due to release its preliminary 2005 results on February 24. Specifically, Egnatia expect total operating

CyTA, the state owned telecom giant, which had been fined CYP 2.2 mln for abuse of its dominant position in the mobile phone market and for violation of article 6 of Law 207/89 by the Competition Commission will appeal the ruling. The Commission however, decided that CyTA had not violated the law on price fixing.

A new online trade initiative aimed at making it easier to move goods and services in and out of Singapore will be launched by October, officials said. Called “TradeXchange,” it will link various computer systems used by importers and exporters with the goal of creating a seamless platform among regulators, shippers and traders. TradeXchange will