BERLIN (AFP) – Ailing carmaker Opel is considering launching an electric car for inner-city use to tap what it sees as a high-potential market, the firm's boss said in an interview Sunday.

"We are thinking about a small electric vehicle," the chief of the General Motors unit, Nick Reilly, told Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

"We believe there is strong potential for growth in cities across the world," he added, predicting that "various governments are going to provide fiscal support for this kind of vehicle."

NEW YORK (Reuters) – American International Group Inc's (AIG.N) board approved the sale of its Asian life insurance business to Britain's Prudential Plc (PRU.L) for $35.5 billion, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Prudential, Britain's largest insurer, will pay about $25 billion in cash and the rest in equity, which could include preferred stock, for AIG's American International Assurance (AIA), the source said, declining to be identified because the deal is not public yet.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks rose on Friday, capping their best monthly advance since November as data showed the economy grew a tad better than expected in the fourth quarter.

On a day marked by light volume as Wall Street was buried in a snowstorm, the falling dollar also boosted the shares of exporters, who benefit from a weaker greenback.

"The dollar has declined somewhat and, in general, when the dollar has been declining, that's positive for equities," said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.

TOKYO – Fresh from a grilling by U.S. lawmakers, Toyota President Akio Toyoda will speak Monday in China about his company's quality problems, seeking to boost confidence and ease consumer worries in the world's biggest auto market.

Toyoda, who testified at a U.S. Congressional hearing last week about the spate of global recalls plaguing Toyota Motor Corp., will speak to reporters at a Beijing hotel, company spokeswoman Ririko Takeuchi said.

The number of vehicles being recalled in China is small compared with the 8.5 million vehicles recalled worldwide since October for sticky gas pedals, faulty floor mats and glitches in braking software.

MILAN – For most of the world's automakers, the Geneva Auto Show will be back-to-business with new model rollouts to put the gotta-have-it gleam back in consumers' eyes.

For Toyota, that won't be enough.

'Toyota is still in the middle of its global recalls, and new problems keep showing up. It's like Tiger Woods: new mistresses keep appearing,' said Rebecca Lindland, auto analyst with consulting firm IHS-Global Insight.

Toyota has issued global recalls totaling 8.5 million vehicles since October for sticky gas pedals, faulty floor mats and glitches in braking software.

BRUSSELS – The EU's financial affairs chief is traveling to Athens to hold discussions with Greek officials on their country's debt crisis and efforts to enact painful austerity measures to curb public spending.

EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn will have talks Monday in the Greek capital with, among others, Deputy Premier Theodorus Pangalos, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou and George Provopoulos, the governor of the Bank of Greece, the European Commission said Saturday.

GROWTH SPURT: The economy grew at a 5.9 percent pace in the final quarter of last year. That was stronger than the government's initial estimate of 5.7 percent growth. It marked the best showing in six years.

THE FUEL: Most of the growth came because companies stopped slashing their stockpiles of goods, which were cut at a record pace during the recession. Spending by businesses and by foreigners snapping up U.S. exports also contributed. But consumer spending weakened.

NOT SUSTAINABLE: The economy is expected to grow at a 3 percent pace in the current quarter, analysts say.

Source: Summary Box: Gr...

NEW YORK – Investors are seeking direction. Friday's report on employment could give them exactly what they want.

The Labor Department's monthly snapshot on employment has always been crucial for investors trying to figure out where the economy is headed. This month's report comes at a time when the market cannot figure out which direction it wants to go. Economic indicators domestically and around the globe are as murky as they've been in months.

Markets have alternated rallies and retreats in recent weeks — sometimes even within a single trading session — following fallout from European debt problems and recent reports on housing, manufacturing and consumer confidence that sent mixed signals.

Nothing gives tax geeks heart palpitations quite like a proposal to overhaul the income tax code in the manner of the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Nothing Congress has done since has been accorded the same reverence.

So it wouldn't be surprising to learn that people all over Washington swooned last week when two senators who haven't much to lose offered a serious proposal to get away from taxation as we know it, in an echo of what transpired 24 years ago.

Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Judd Gregg of New Hampshire propose putting in place a much simplified revenue-producing machine that may induce little popular enthusiasm at the moment but that has broad theoretical appeal. Its chief claim to the mantle of "real reform" is that it would pare the number of tax brackets, reduce rates and eliminate scores of deductions and other complicating elements.

BLUE SPRINGS, Miss. – Terry McShan isn't thinking about car sales analyses or excess capacity when he drives by the idle Toyota plant in northeast Mississippi. He's thinking about his little girl.

Like most Mississippians, the 46-year-old father of one grown daughter and a 4-year-old girl was thrilled when Toyota announced plans in 2007 to build a plant in Blue Springs, a one-store town in the north Mississippi hills. McShan soon enrolled in a junior college's automotive program in hopes of landing a job at the plant.

Those were better times, when the car market was strong, Mississippi officials gladly signed off on a $324 million incentive package and Toyota said it would be building cars in Blue Springs in 2010. Three years later, the economy has tanked, one of the most trusted brands in the business has recalled millions of cars and McShan will graduate with no immediate prospects for a Toyota job in Mississippi.