China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest phone carrier by market value, and Research in Motion Ltd., which have an agreement to sell BlackBerry handsets in China, seek to boost the business, China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou said in Shenzhen Thursday.

Cell phone handset maker Sony Ericsson will move its North American headquarters from North Carolina to Atlanta and close a half-dozen sites worldwide as it retrenches against what it expects will be a tighter market and cuts about 1,600 jobs globally.

China Minsheng Banking Corp., the nation's first privately owned lender, raised HK$30.1 billion (US$3.89 billion) in Hong Kong's biggest public share sale since April 2007, three people familiar with the matter said.

Deutsche Bank is set to become the largest shareholder in China's Huaxia Bank after agreeing to increase its stake in the mid-sized lender to 17.12 percent, the Chinese bank said Thursday.

Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp., Japan's biggest chemical maker, agreed to buy Mitsubishi Rayon Co. for as much as 217 billion yen (US$2.43 billion) to reunite with the synthetic-fiber maker almost 60 years after they split.

The Obama administration is poised to extend the life of the highly unpopular US$700 billion financial bailout, and, to display a commitment to fiscal responsibility, is planning to use much of the leftover funds to reduce the national debt, government sources said.

Despite the lowest mortgage rates since May, applications for loans to finance home purchases fell again last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.

The budding economic recovery isn't getting much help from the home-building industry, which normally creates jobs and drives growth when a recession ends.

Almost a quarter of U.S. employers say morale among workers at their companies is low, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

France risks attracting the ire of its European neighbors when it unveils plans to raise tens of billions of euros in new borrowing just as its EU partners are being urged to begin reining in the stimulus packages that caused deficits and debts to skyrocket.