A look at economic developments and activity in major stock markets around the world Friday:

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LONDON _ The British government's growing budget deficit blew out by an additional 20.3 billion pounds ($33 billion) in November, the largest monthly figure since records began in 1993.

The figure was not as bad as the 23 billion pounds feared by economists.

The Office for National Statistics said the shortfall was up from 15.5 billion pounds in the same month a year earlier, pushing national debt to 60.2 percent of economic output.

Brown and Treasury chief Alistair Darling have resisted calls for tougher steps such as deep spending cuts or tax increases to curb government borrowing. They say the need to support Britain's tentative economic recovery outweighs immediate desires to reduce the deficit.

Darling has instead pledged to halve the deficit _ which has reached 83.2 million pounds so far this year _ over the next four years.

In markets, European stocks reversed earlier gains as a number of investors began to shut up shop for the Christmas holiday by booking profits built up over the last nine months. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed down 0.4 percent, Germany's DAX fell 0.2 percent and the CAC-40 in France fell 1 percent.

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TOKYO _ Japan's central bank said it was crucial for the country to beat deflation and it would not accept continued price declines.

Bank of Japan policy members also voted unanimously to hold its key interest rate unchanged at 0.1 percent, as widely expected, to support a recovery in the world's No. 2 economy.

The central bank's statement on deflation came after pressure from the government for a more proactive stance.

In Asian trading, Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average fell 0.2 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.8 percent, South Korea's Kospi eased 0.1 percent, Australia's index dropped 0.4 percent and China's Shanghai market lost 2.1 percent.

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ATHENS, Greece _ Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said the country's tax system will be overhauled by early March to broaden the tax base, boost revenues and fight tax evasion as part of efforts to pull Greece out of an economic crisis.

Athens is facing its worst debt crisis in decades and has come under intense European Union pressure to straighten out its finances and comply with deficit limits intended to support the shared euro currency.

The government announced a raft of measures this week to reduce Greece's mountain of public debt by 2012 and gradually bring the budget deficit _ projected at 12.7 percent for 2009 _ to below the European Union's euro-zone requirement of 3 percent of GDP by the end of 2013.