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MELBOURNE Reuters Global miner BHP Billiton on Sunday played down any chance of raising its $39 billion bid for fertilizer maker Potash Corp, saying it had timed its move to catch out weakened rival bidders.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Vanselow, speaking in an Australian television interview, also said the hostile bid had been timed to ensure more ready access to credit markets.

"The opportunity in Potash is that we are now in a situation that our balance sheet allows us to raise the credit necessary to buy, the valuations match, and basically if you look at the landscape of competitors, theyre not in the same position as we are," Vanselow told ABCs Inside Business show.

"So youve taken all this into consideration -- you can see this is an opportune time to make a bid."

BHP, the worlds biggest miner, unveiled its biggest half-year profit in two years on Wednesday, with just $3.3 billion in net debt and gearing at a low 6 percent, putting it in a strong position to raise its offer if necessary.

Potash Corps shares last traded 14 percent above BHPs offer price, as investors bet that BHP will have to pay more or another bidder will emerge, but Vanselow said there was no need for BHP to raise its offer of $130 a share.

"There is only one offer on the table, so why would we compete against ourselves?"

Rival miner Rio Tinto is considered unlikely to make a counterbid as it has only just recovered from a mountain of debt it took on for its $38 billion takeover of Alcan three years ago. Rio Tinto has since said that it would only consider smaller acquisitions.

Brazils Vale, which is building a potash business, has said it is not looking at Potash Corp.

That has stoked speculation that the only potential counterbidders would include a player from China, the worlds biggest importer of potash, a key nutrient needed to boost crop yields as food consumption soars.

Chinas largest fertilizer distributor, Sinofert Holdings Ltd, said on Thursday it was worried a BHP takeover of Potash Corp would have a big impact on the company but would not say if its parent, Sinochem, was planning a rival offer.

BHP CEO Marius Kloppers is in North America, set to meet with BHP shareholders to discuss the bid and the groups results. He is expected to start wooing Potash Corp shareholders, many of whom are also BHP stakeholders.

A Reuters survey indicated Potash shareholders would accept $162 a share.

Under UK listing rules, the $39 billion offer does not need a BHP shareholder vote as it is worth less than 25 percent of BHPs market value of $188 billion the day before the bid was launched.

But if the bid were sweetened, the 25 percent threshold would apply to BHPs market value on the day before the announcement of the higher offer. Based on BHPs market value on August 27, an increase of just over 10 percent in the bid to $43 billion would be enough to trigger a BHP shareholder vote.

Vanselow said BHP would also look into what happened at Santander, the euro zones largest bank and an adviser on BHPs bid, after one of the banks employees was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with insider trading in Potash Corp securities ahead of the bid.

Asked if BHP would hesitate to use Santander again, he said: "I think we will investigate what happened, well get the feedback from Santander and then well decide on that."

Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Mark Bendeich

This story does not carry a dateline to protect the identity and location of a source Reuters - The European Union thinks China has made only limited progress in allowing its yuan currency to move more rapidly, and swifter action would help safeguard a fragile economic recovery, according to a draft G20 document obtained by Reuters on Saturday.

The document outlines EU positions ahead of a Group of 20 deputy finance leaders meeting in Gwangju, South Korea, September 4-5. South Korea will host a G20 leaders summit in November.

The 13-page document addresses issues including the economic outlook, governance of the International Monetary Fund, financial regulatory reform, and climate change. The draft was undated, and it was not clear whether EU officials had approved it.

The EU sounded somewhat upbeat on Europes economic prospects, but raised concerns about growing risks in the United States and Japan, the document shows. The draft also reflects some frustration with Chinas slow progress in allowing its currency to appreciate.

China announced in June that it would loosen its grip on the tightly managed yuan, which the United States and Europe say Beijing keeps artificially low to support exports.

"A vigorous implementation of this policy is now necessary," the draft statement said. "Unfortunately, so far, only limited progress has been made."

It said a stronger yuan would be in Beijings best interest because it would help prevent the Chinese economy from overheating and creating asset price bubbles.

UNCERTAINTY GROWS

The EU draft said the global economic recovery remained fragile and uneven across countries and "downside risks have increased in the U.S. and Japan."

Since the last G20 summit in Toronto in June, the U.S. economy has shown signs of faltering while Europes growth has been stronger than expected.

Global stock markets stumbled in August in part because of worries that the U.S. economy could slip back into recession, although Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke insisted on Friday that modest growth would continue through this year and the pace would likely pick up next year.

In Japan, the yens leap to a 15-year high has raised concerns that its export-led recovery might fade. Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Saturday he was ready to employ "all possible measures" to shackle the yen, which tends to strengthen in times of global economic uncertainty.

The EU draft said Europes economy was "performing somewhat better than expected" and praised recent stress tests of Europes largest banks for raising investor confidence in the health of the financial system.

Reprising a theme from the Toronto G20 summit, the document said the EU was following a "growth-friendly" path toward repairing debt-bloated government finances, and prodded the United States and Japan to pare their own deficits and debt once economic recovery is assured.

That was a source of transatlantic friction earlier this year when the White House chided Germany in particular for pulling back its fiscal support too swiftly. The United States warned that switching to austerity too soon might jeopardize the economic recovery.

On IMF governance, another area of disagreement between the United States and Europe, the draft gives no indication that the EU is willing to give up seats on the IMFs executive board in order to give greater voice to fast-growing emerging economies such as China.

The draft showed the EU supports shifting slightly more than 5 percent of IMF quota shares to "underrepresented" emerging and developing economies, but wants to keep the size of the executive board unchanged.

Reporting by Reuters G20 team

BEIJING Reuters China says it is understandable for its workers to demand higher wages after foregoing pay increases during the worst of the economic crisis, a Japanese official said after talks with Chinese counterparts.

A wave of strikes in China have hit Japanese companies and their suppliers in particular in recent months.

The issue was raised in a meeting between senior officials from both countries in Beijing on Saturday, Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Satoru Satoh told a news conference.

Chinese officials, Satoh said, suggested that, whatever view Beijing took of the strikes, it saw rising wage demands as unavoidable as low-paid migrant workers seek to gain ground in the growing economy.

"The Chinese side responded by explaining that the request for increasing wages by workers is understandable," Satoh said, summarizing the talks, led on the Chinese side by Vice Premier Wang Qishan.

The Chinese officials said workers had held back on wage expectations during the worst of the financial crisis that rippled across the globe from 2008, Satoh said.

Beijing has been lifting minimum-wage levels across the country as it tries to boost domestic consumption to make it a driver of economic growth, and ease Chinas reliance on exports.

The Japanese spokesman said the wave of strikes, which he said affected more than 100 companies, raised questions about labor laws and industrial relations rules that his government would pursue in subsequent talks.

The disputes and wild-cat strikes were concentrated in southern China, which produces many of the countrys exports. It hit mostly foreign-owned factories, including suppliers to Honda Motor Company 7267.T and its bigger rival Toyota 7203.T.

The strikers mostly belonged to Chinas 150 million strong migrant labor workforce, which flows from villages to cities and industrial regions looking for work.

Chinese law neither explicitly bans nor allows strikes. Beijing put aside its usual wariness of social unrest and did not crack down harshly on much of the recent industrial action.

Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Jon Hemming

JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming Reuters Tax and budget policies need the same regularity and independence as monetary policy if countries around the world are to cope with looming stresses from pension programs, world central bankers were told at a Federal Reserve conference on Saturday.

"Modern monetary research and practical policy-making are united in aiming to make monetary policy scientific," said Indiana University Economics Professor Eric Leeper in a paper. "No analogous transformation has occurred with macro fiscal policy."

Leeper presented his paper at an annual conference held by the U.S. Federal Reserve in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

His view will have resonance for policy-makers who in many countries have already cut interest rates to historically low levels and launched extensive asset purchase programs to stimulate growth. With prospects for new fiscal stimulus programs politically unpopular, central bankers are considering additional measures to ease financial conditions to support flagging recoveries in many countries represented at the conference.

In addition, U.S. politicians have for many years debated without resolution whether to raise taxes or cut benefits to the Social Security and Medicare retiree pension and health care programs, which face stiff financial challenges as the baby boom generation retires.

Fiscal policy can have as strong an effect on economic activity and inflation as monetary policy decisions, Leeper said.

Central bankers are likely to have to pay more attention to taxation and budgeting in the future as the stresses from the financial obligations of retirement programs increase, he said.

Since there is general agreement that central bank decisions should be made without political meddling, financial markets can be reasonably confident of policy makers responses to a slowdown in economic growth or a rise in inflation, Leeper said.

However, no such predictability exists for fiscal policy, which can shift with political winds.

"There is a fairly clear consensus on the objectives of monetary policy, but none for fiscal policy," Leeper wrote.

"Governments devote shockingly few resources into understanding fiscal policys impacts," he wrote.

He urged central bankers to be more outspoken on fiscal issues, reversing their preference for wading into politically sensitive areas.

"Central bankers have a role to play ... They can break away from the taboo against saying anything substantive on fiscal policy," he wrote.

Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Leslie Adler

BEIJING Reuters Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Saturday he was ready to employ "all possible measures" to tackle the soaring yen, which was having a big impact on the countrys export-led economy.

Speaking in Chinas capital, Noda told reporters he wanted the Bank of Japan to guide policy while sharing its views on the economy with the government.

He also said there was room for Japans central bank to improve the monetary situation, but it was up to the bank to consider specific policy steps.

The yen hit a 15-year high against the dollar this week, and Tokyo is scrambling to craft a package of steps to prop up its stuttering economy while keeping up pressure on the BOJ to do more to pull the country out of deflation.

The yen, which surged to 83.58 per dollar on Tuesday, was hovering just above 85 on Saturday.

"Many people are worried and the government is taking a serious view, and we must adopt all possible measures," Noda said, after meeting Chinese Finance Minister Xie Xuren on the sidelines of a Japan-China economic dialogue.

Noda urged China to make its yuan currency more flexible and said Japan would announce its basic policy on an economic package next week.

"We will take decisive measures when necessary while watching market trends with great interest," Noda said, echoing comments the previous day from Prime Minister Naoto Kan that signaled possible currency intervention.

Noda also said he expected Kan to meet BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa as soon as possible after the central bank chief returns from the United States on Monday.

The BOJ may hold an emergency meeting early next week to ease monetary policy, a source familiar with the matter said [ID:nSGE67Q0J1]

China, meanwhile, should continue making "steady efforts" to make its currency more flexible, Noda told reporters. The yuan has appreciated about 0.4 percent against the dollar since it was lifted from a nearly two-year peg on June 19.

Japan has not intervened in the currency market since March 2004, when a 15-month yen-selling spree came to an end. During that period, they sold 35 trillion yen $410 billion, the equivalent of more than one-third of the annual budget.

Despite the risk of possible action by Japanese authorities to curb yen strength, such as currency intervention or monetary easing, some traders and investors say the yen could still test a record high of 79.75 yen to the dollar, hit in April 1995.

$1=85.37 Yen

Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Nick Macfie, Ken Wills, John Stonestreet

NEW YORK Reuters Beaten-up investors go into September, historically a weak month for stocks, facing key reports on jobs, manufacturing and services. If those disappoint, the S&P 500 could breach technical support levels, pushing stocks yet lower.

The S&P 500 index has fallen nearly 13 percent since April as investors fret about the chance of a double-dip recession. But the index has found solid support around the 1,040 level, with a sustained move below that proving tough.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke boosted stocks on Friday by signaling the Fed is ready to act if the economy worsens. But more weakness in upcoming indicators like non-farm payrolls and Institute for Supply Management surveys would intensify fears the economy is sliding back into recession.

"There is this continual trend toward numbers falling short of expectations," said Nick Kalivas, equity analyst at MF Global in Chicago. "My guess is youll see some selling come in again next week on these numbers."

The non-farm payroll report on Friday is expected to show 99,000 jobs were lost in August, swollen by redundancies among temporary census workers, while private sector hires grew by only 42,000.

Both the manufacturing and services sectors are expected to have experienced another slowdown in growth in August. The ISM manufacturing report is released on Wednesday, followed by the services sector report on Friday.

ATTRACTING BUYERS

The S&P 500 tested the 1,040 level twice during the week, both times ending the day with gains. The level has consistently attracted buyers over the past 10 months and was significantly breached only once during a brief stint in July.

"Here we are sitting at this important support level, having pulled back 8 percent on an intraday basis in three weeks, you potentially set up for a reversal," said Richard Ross, global technical strategist at Auerbach Grayson in New York.

The benchmark Standard & Poors 500 index finished this week at 1,064 on Friday. If the 1,040 level is breached, the S&P 500 could fall into a lower range around 1,020 to 1,010. However, the index runs into resistance at its 14-day moving average at 1,076.65, providing only limited scope on the upside.

Investor sentiment remains negative. In the options market, investors bought S&P 500 puts, giving them the right to sell S&P futures at a fixed price, although the most actively traded option on the S&P 500 SPY.P ETF was the $107 call, suggesting some bullish trades ahead of next week.

"Overall investor sentiment in the option market has become very skeptical, with put buying widely exceeding call purchases," said Ryan Detrick, technical senior analyst at Schaeffers Investment Research in Cincinnati.

The put-to-call ratio, a measure of investor sentiment, was at 0.61 as of Thursdays close compared to a 21-day ratio of 0.59.

Investors will be closely following comments from executives at big industrial companies like General Electric GE.N and Boeing BA.N at Morgan Stanleys Global Industrials Unplugged Conference next week.

MAJOR REVENUE ESTIMATES

Intel Corp INTC.O cut its third-quarter revenue estimates in a surprise on Friday. Although investors shook off the news after an initial fall, bleak outlooks from large corporation at the heart of the economy could rattle investors.

As usual there will be a series of secondary labor market data playing second fiddle ahead of the Fridays jobs number. ADPs jobs report on Wednesday is expected to show the private sector added 18,000 jobs in August, down from 42,000 in July.

Weekly claims for jobless benefits are tipped to remain solidly elevated on Thursday, edging up to 475,000 compared to 473,000 the week before.

With significant risks on the horizon, many investors may think twice about getting into the market at the start of September, historically the worst performing month for all three major indexes.

That may be especially true given the three day break the following week when U.S. markets shut to observe Labor Day on Monday, September 6.

Scott Marcouiller, chief technical market strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis, said he found it hard to envision a rally in the current environment.

"Right now the market is locked into short-term thinking," he said.

Reporting by Edward Krudy; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Leah Schnurr; Editing by Kenneth Barry

FRANKFURT Reuters Potash miner K+S SDFG.DE is specialized enough to weather any takeover of Canadian rival Potash Corp POT.TO and survive as a standalone entity, the German firms finance director told a newspaper.

Potash Corp is facing a hostile $39 billion bid from BHP Billiton BHP.AX. The Canadian firms shares have traded well above the $130 that the offer represents, suggesting investors believe BHP will boost its offer or a rival bidder will emerge.

"We are following the latest developments ... calmly," Jan Peter Nonnenkamp told Boersen Zeitung newspaper in an interview published on Saturday.

Asked if K+S, the worlds fourth-largest potash miner, should act to ensure it does not become a takeover target, he said: "A change of ownership at Potash Corp would not create new capacity.

"The worldwide potash market would continue to offer sufficient space for K+S. That is true for standard products, but particularly more so for our specialty products," he said.

"In the past few years, K+S was able to assert itself very successfully against export cartels like Canpotex or BPC."

Nonnenkamp said K+S would continue to create value for shareholders, which was "the best protection against takeovers."

Editing by John Stonestreet

BEIJING Reuters Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Saturday he told Chinese officials that Tokyo wants to see further efforts to make the yuan more flexible.

"I told Chinese officials that I appreciate its announcement on currency system reform on June 19 -- in other words making the yuan more flexible -- and that I expect them to make steady efforts," Noda told reporters after Japan-China high level economic dialogue.

The yuan has appreciated about 0.4 percent against the dollar since it was lifted from a nearly two-year peg on June 19 when China promised to make its currency more flexible.

Ministers from Asias two economic powers agreed to further develop their mutually beneficial strategic relationship at the annual dialogue. They agreed to meet again next year in Japan.

Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Ken Wills