Newspaper round-up

LONDON (Reuters) - Here are the business headlines from Tuesday's newspapers.

The Financial Times

HOUSE SALES HAVE HIT NEW LOW, SAY SURVEYORS

Surveyors say housing sales have fallen to a new low and that they expect the reform package unveiled by ministers last week will do little to help the crisis. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors will reveal today the average number of transactions per surveyor fell again in August and that this was due to a lack of mortgage finance. Areas of weakest sales include London, Wales and southern England. The fall in house sales has been putting estate agents out of business and property website Rightmove> says that more than 1,300 offices went bust in the first six months of the year.

FALLING OIL PRICE ASSUAGES FEARS OVER INFLATION

The producer price index has registered a drop comfortably above expectations and the sharpest one month decline in the series since 1980. The index fell 0.6 percent with the falling oil price being the biggest single contributor to the drop in both input and output prices. Economists took biggest note of the drop in core producer prices which fell 0.1 percent month on month, the first such drop since October 2005, but some cautioned against reading an imminent rate cut into the data, noting the improved outlook came before the latest slide in sterling.

CONSUMERS REIN IN SPENDING

The monthly survey from the British Retail Consortium is to reveal a rainy August added to the gloom permeating Britain's retail sector with consumers continuing to rein in spending over the summer. Year-on-year growth in total sales values slowed from 1.7 per cent in July to 1.4 per cent in August. Sales from January to August were 2.6 higher than a year earlier but this compares to a growth rate of 4.7 per cent which retailers experienced in the first eight months of 2007. Policymakers and economists expect weaker consumer spending to drag down economic growth as householders have to deal with bigger fuel and food bills.

JOBS OUTLOOK WEAKEST FOR NINE YEARS