WORLD FINANCE UPDATE:
The Australian dollar has become the best performing currency overnight and is now targeting 73 US cents after surprisingly positive growth data.
At 0700 AEDT on Thursday, the local unit was trading at 72.96 US cents, up from 72.40 cents on Wednesday.
And the Australian share market looks set to open higher as the recent recovery in oil prices and a batch of positive economic data from Australia to the US calms fears of a global economic slowdown.
At 0645 AEDT on Thursday, the share price index futures contract was up 15 points at 5.029.
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ELSEWHERE:
WASHINGTON - US businesses added a healthy 214,000 jobs last month, another sign that the US job market remains resilient despite economic weakness overseas and tumult in financial markets.
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve says the economy was expanding in most of the country in January and February, helped by gains in consumer spending and home sales. But there were also rising headwinds from falling oil prices and a strong US dollar that held back some sectors.
BEIJING - China plans to target broad-based money supply growth of about 13 per cent this year, sources said, a signal that further monetary policy easing is likely during a painful economic restructuring that could result in millions of workers losing jobs.
MOSCOW - Russia's Rosneft, the world's biggest listed oil producer by volume, is considering a cut to domestic production to balance the global market and as the firm faces a natural decline this year.
BRASILIA - Mining company Samarco agreed with the Brazilian government to pay more than 24 billion reais ($A8.6 billion) in damages for a deadly dam spill in November, an environment ministry memo seen by Reuters says.
LONDON - Anheuser-Busch InBev has agreed to sell SABMiller's stake in China's Snow Breweries for $US1.6 billion ($A2.23 billion) to ease regulatory concerns about the merger of the world's two biggest beer-makers.
LAGOS - Tens of thousands of Nigerian fishermen and farmers are suing multinational oil giant Shell in two new lawsuits filed in a British High Court, alleging that decades of uncleaned oil spills have destroyed their lives.
