G20 to discuss debt crisis
Finance ministers from the G20 group of nations are meeting in Paris later to continue efforts to find a solution to the debt crisis in the eurozone.
While Greece remains the central focus, fears remain that the crisis could spread to other highly indebted eurozone countries such as Spain and Italy, and exposed European banks.
Greece needs its next bailout loan next month to avoid defaulting on its debt.
Spain was hit by a further credit rating cut on Thursday.
Standard & Poor's reduced Spain's long term rating by one notch, citing weak growth and high levels of private-sector debt.
It came a week after fellow credit rating agency Fitch also cut Spain's rating.
On Thursday, Fitch also downgraded the creditworthiness of UK banks Lloyds and RBS, and also Switzerland's UBS.
The euro rose as high as $1.3828 against the dollar in Friday trading, on optimism ahead of the meeting of G20 finance ministers.
However, analysts caution that any major decisions on tackling the eurozone debt crisis will not be announced until the meeting of European Union (EU) leaders on 23 October.
These are expected to include an agreement on increasing the funding and powers of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), the fund set up to help national governments in financial difficulty.
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