Sales of French champagne, the favored sparkling tipple for any celebration, rose 7.0 percent by value last year, driven by strong export demand, especially in new markets such as China.

Industry group CIVC said some 323 million bottles of champagne worth 4.4 billion euros ($5.9 billion) were drunk in 2011, with sales helped by continued gains in some of the most upmarket brands.

A South Korean energy group is to invest $2 billion as part of a project to develop three oil fields in the United Arab Emirates, officials said Monday.

The state-run Korea National Oil Corp. and energy firm GS Energy will hold a combined 40 percent stake in the $5 billion project, with Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. taking the remaining stake, the Knowledge Economy Ministry said.

An emergency plan to re-launch its impoverished economy is to be presented to a "Friends of Yemen" forum of aid donors in Riyadh in April, the planning minister said Saturday.

Yemen's interim transitional administration drew up "an emergency plan to re-launch the economy" and will submit it to the meeting, said Mohammed al-Saadi.

General Motors Co. is suspending production of its Chevrolet Volt electric car for five weeks amid disappointing sales.

A GM spokesman said Friday that the company will shut down production of the Volt from March 19 until April 23, idling 1,300 workers at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant.

China might set an annual economic growth target below 8.0 percent for this year, state media said Saturday, as the leaders of the world's second largest economy acknowledge it is slowing.

The report in the official Shanghai Securities News came before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao delivers an annual policy address to lawmakers on Monday, when he is due to announce economic goals for the year.

The ratings agency Moody's downgraded Greece to the lowest rating on its bond scale late Friday, following a deal with private investors that would see them ultimately lose an estimated 70 percent of their holdings in Greek debt.

Moody's lowered Greece's sovereign rating to C from Ca, arguing that the risk of default remains high even a bond-swap deal with banks and other private investors, due to be completed this month, is successful.

BP said Friday it reached a $7.8 billion deal to settle claims from fishermen and other private claimants affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill ahead of the start of a blockbuster U.S. trial.

The settlement does not affect what is anticipated to be tens of billions in fines and claims from the U.S. government and the coastal states and local governments impacted by the spill.

Spain's Labor Ministry says the number of people filing for unemployment benefits rose by 112,269 in January, raising the overall figure to a rounded 4.7 million.

Spain's jobless rate stands at a 22.9 percent, the highest in the 17-nation eurozone.

Oil prices fell slightly to near $108 a barrel Friday in Asia after Saudi Arabia denied an Iranian media report of an explosion at a Saudi pipeline.

Benchmark oil for April delivery was down 41 cents to $108.43 at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The leaders of 25 European states have signed a new treaty designed to prevent the 17 euro countries from running up huge debts in order to prevent a repeat of the current crisis afflicting the single currency zone.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, who oversaw the drafting of the accord, said the treaty will bring an "economic and monetary union that is finally walking on two legs."