SEOUL (MNI) - The global economic recovery is here to stay but it is also at risk as a result of financial market fragility and the end of fiscal stimulus cycles, Financial Stability Board Chairman and Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi said here Friday.

"It's not going to be a strong recovery in the short- to medium-term," he told reporters at a briefing on the sidelines of an FSB meeting here.

BERLIN (MNI) - Deutsche Bank chief economist Thomas Mayer fears that the public debt crisis will flare up again in the Eurozone later this month, according to an article in German business daily Handelsblatt.

"We must prepare ourselves in Europe for troubles in the autumn," Mayer told the newspaper in an interview published Friday.

By Courtney Tower

OTTAWA (MNI) - Canadians are out of step with the rest of the industrialized world, confidently buying new motor vehicles when sales in the United States and many other countries are falling.

BEIJING (MNI) - The semi-official purchasing managers index for China's non-manufacturing sector stayed unchanged at 60.1 in August after expanding strongly in July, according to data released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) Friday.

PMI readings above 50.0 signal expansion while readings below 50.0 signal contraction. The further the index above or below 50, the faster the expansion or contraction in the sector.

BEIJING (MNI) - The reserve assets which developing countries have no choice but to hold are subject to possible depreciation risk because of potential swings in the values of the reserve currencies that they are denominated in, a People's Bank of China official has warned.

SINGAPORE, Sept. 3 (MNI) - The U.S. dollar traded sideways within narrow ranges in Asia Friday, as players waited for the release of tonight's U.S. non-farm payrolls data for August.

The FX market started the session with tinge of risk aversion this morning, although modest gains in some of the region's main stock markets managed to partly counter that, keeping major currency pairs confined near their opening levels.

BEIJING (MNI) - The People's Bank of China set the yuan's central parity rate at 6.7973 to the U.S. dollar on Friday, higher than the previous trading day's central parity of 6.8003.

Today's parity was set below the record high of 6.7685 on Aug.9.

The yuan finished at 6.8084 against the U.S. dollar on the over-the-counter (OTC) market Thursday, higher than Wednesday's close of 6.8115.

BEIJING (MNI) - U.S. dollars account for around 65% of China's foreign exchange reserves, an official newspaper said Friday, with euros making up 26%, sterling 5% and yen another 3%.

The China Securities Journal report cited unidentified officials with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

The exact composition of China's $2.45 trillion in foreign exchange reserves is a closely-guarded secret, though analysts have long estimated that around two-thirds are denominated in dollars.