A Look At Economic Developments Around The Globe

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The incoming chief executive of Dutch financial services company ING Groep NV made a "moral appeal" for his senior staff to pay back their 2008 bonuses. The call by Jan Hommen comes with ING under fire for handing its new chief financial officer 100,000 ING shares as part of his enlistment package, despite a government bailout of billions of euros to prop up the banking and insurance group. Some ING managers have indicated they were prepared to relinquish their bonuses, Hommen was quoted as saying in an interview published in the daily De Volkskrant.

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GENEVA — Efforts to kick-start the global economy with billion-dollar spending packages will be in vain unless the financial industry comes clean about the full extent of its losses, the International Monetary Fund's managing director said. Experience from past financial crises shows that cleaning up banks' balance sheets is essential if the world is to return to growth in 2010, Dominique Strauss-Khan said.

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CAIRO — Saudi Arabia's information minister says the OPEC powerhouse is committed to continuing with its long-term oil sector investment plans, despite the current global economic crisis.