'New normal', new world

China's cooling growth prospects are expected to shift the economic agenda away from the eurozone, although Greece remains firmly in the spotlight because of its precarious funding outlook.

China is expected to provide further hints of the challenges it faces after the world's No 2 economy depicted its "new normal" during this month's annual meeting of the National People's Congress - a growth target of 7 percent for this year, the lowest for quarter of a century.

Retail sales rose 10.7 percent year-on-year in January-February, the lowest pace in a decade, said the National Bureau of Statistics. Fixed-asset investment, a crucial driver of the Chinese economy, rose 13.9 percent, and the industrial output grew 6.8 percent, the weakest expansion since late 2008.