Morning business round-up: Eurozone markets ease

What made the business news in Asia and Europe this morning? Here's our daily business round-up:

After a dramatic sell-off in bonds of many eurozone countries on Tuesday, bond yields eased in morning trade, with Reuters citing traders as saying that the European Central Bank was intervening in the market.

Italian bond yields, which had jumped back above the 7% rate that is widely seen by analysts as unsustainable on Tuesday, fell back, although they remained near the 7% mark.

The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has warned that the eurozone faces a "systemic crisis" that will need a stronger commitment from all countries to resolve.

He told the European Parliament that additional measures might be needed to tackle the debt crisis - including deeper economic integration among the 17 countries in the eurozone.

Figures released on Wednesday showed that inflation in the eurozone remained at 3% in October, unchanged from the month before, as energy costs remained high.

The rate is still above the European Central Bank's target of 2%, but analysts suggested that the rate could fall in the coming months.

In the UK, Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King has said Britain's economy could stagnate until the middle of next year.

The Bank cut its 2011 and 2012 growth predictions to about 1%, warning the global economic outlook had "worsened".

Delivering the Bank's quarterly inflation report, Sir Mervyn said the eurozone debt crisis was the "single biggest risk" to the UK.

But he said inflation had peaked and was likely to fall sharply over the next few years.

His comments came shortly after the latest set of UK unemployment figures showed that the number of jobless rose by 129,000 in the three months to September to 2.62 million.

In addition, the jobless total for 16 to 24-year-olds hit a record of 1.02 million.

In Asia, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has warned that the country's economic growth may be hurt by the eurozone debt crisis, flooding in Thailand and a strong yen.

It said the euro crisis was stifling demand from Europe, while disruption to supply chains due to the Thai floods was affecting Japanese manufacturing.

The warning comes just days after Japan reported that its economy grew by 1.5% in the third quarter.

The BOJ left its key interest unchanged between zero and 0.1% to boost growth.

Dell - the world's third-largest personal computer maker - has warned its revenues could be hit by a worldwide shortage of hard drives caused by the flooding in Thailand.

Thailand is a production hub for many global firms, and severe flooding has hurt a wide range of industries.

Software giant SAP has unveiled plans to invest $2bn (£1.2bn) in China in an attempt to expand its operations.

The company said it will hire almost 2,000 more staff and open five to six new offices by 2015 as part of its expansion plans.

The latest edition of Business Daily looks at how close Iraq is to having a functioning modern economy, and also considers how Spain might drag itself out of the eurozone mire.