Greece's reform minister said on Thursday that the indebted country was close to a deal with its EU-IMF creditors on cutting state jobs which would clear the way for the next bailout installment.

"We will definitely be ready on Monday," Kyriakos Mitsotakis told reporters after the end of a meeting between representatives of Greece's international creditors, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras.

Pakistan on Thursday asked the International Monetary Fund for a $5.3 billion, three-year loan to boost growth in a bid to rebuild foreign exchange reserves, an energy crisis and a sliding currency.

The move comes just weeks after the new government was sworn into office after winning May elections that provided Pakistan with its first ever democratic transition of power.

The Vatican has posted a 2.2 million euro ($2.85 million) budget surplus for 2012, an improvement from the previous year and some good news as it struggles to cope with a scandal involving its embattled bank.

In its annual financial statement Thursday, the Holy See said better management had helped it recover from one of its worst deficits a year earlier, when it booked a 14.9 million euro shortfall.

The Bank of England has opted to refrain from pumping more money into the UK economy in its first meeting since new Governor Mark Carney's arrival.

The Monetary Policy Committee kept interest rates at 0.5 percent Thursday and decided against expanding its stimulus program.

Nestle SA says it will cut infant formula prices in China by an average of 11 percent starting Monday amid an investigation into alleged price-fixing by several foreign companies.

The price cuts by the company's Wyeth Nutrition unit will be maintained through 2014, and the prices of some products will be cut by up to 20 percent, Nestle spokesman Jonathan Dong said in an email Thursday.

Italian police have found 13 suspicious money transfers through the Vatican bank, a newspaper said Tuesday, reporting that a senior cleric arrested last week allegedly offered his own accounts to transfer money for his friends.

The Corriere della Sera daily said that the suspect operations which have triggered money laundering controls totalled more than 1.0 million euros ($1.3 million) and were similar to a larger 23-million-euro transfer that led to an investigation that is shaking up the bank.

Abu Dhabi has promised to invest $50 billion in India's cash-hungry infrastructure at a time when growth in Asia's third-largest economy has sharply slowed, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The pledge by Abu Dhabi was the key factor in pushing New Delhi to approve a bilateral deal to increase flights between the two countries, an Indian official told the Indian Express.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts European leaders on Wednesday in a bid to tackle sky-high youth unemployment which has left more than half of under 25-year-olds out of work in several southern countries of the eurozone.

Merkel, who faces elections this year, has repeatedly warned of the threat of a "lost generation" in Greece, Spain, Italy and elsewhere even as her critics at home and abroad charge that it is her push for austerity that worsened the crisis.

Oil prices rose sharply in Asian trade Wednesday on growing concerns that the escalating political crisis in Egypt could affect the rest of the Middle East and disrupt world crude supplies, analysts said.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) light sweet crude for delivery in August, was up $2.25 at $101.85 a barrel in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude for August gained $1.13 to $105.13.

U.S. home prices jumped 12.2 percent in May from a year ago, the most in seven years. The increase suggests the housing recovery is strengthening.

Real estate data provider CoreLogic says prices rose from a year ago in 48 states and fell in only Delaware and Alabama. And all but three of the 100 largest cities reported price gains.