The main navigation channel of the Rhine, blocked by two sunken boats, will remain closed at least until the beginning of next week, a water authority spokesman said today. Karlsruhe water authorities said a queue of about 70 ships had formed between the towns of Speyer and Iffezheim but most shipping companies had unloaded cargoes and were using alternative means of transport. Heinz-Josef Recker, of the Mannheim water authority, said two floating cranes would make a fresh attempt to raise the sunken tug and its lighter after an unsuccessful try on Friday.

The cut in the lending rates and other changes made in the interest rates will hit the profitability of many commercial banks in India, Indian Banks’ Association chairman M. N. Goiporia told a bankers’ conference. The changes were announced by the Reserve Bank of India on March 31 and became effective on April 1. “Some of the latest credit policy measures such as reduced lending rates, raising the statutory liquidity ratio and restructuring of deposit rates will pose a potential threat to commercial banks’ continuing higher profitability levels,” he said.

The growth of the Swiss economy will likely slow to 2.2 pct this year and 1.9 pct in 1988 after reaching 2.8 pct last year, according to a study by a group at Basle University’s Institute of Applied Economics. It blamed the expected slowdown partly on a disappointing outlook for exports caused by the weaker dollar. Exports would likely grow by 2.8 pct this year and by 3.0 pct in 1988, after 3.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng said he would not agree to an extension of the 18-month whole dairy herd buyout program set to expire later this year. Speaking at the Agriculture Department to representatives of the U.S. National Cattlemen’s Association, Lyng said some dairymen asked the program be extended. But he said the Reagan administration, which opposed the whole herd buyout program in the 1985 farm bill, would not agree to an extension.

Jorge Cardenas, manager of Colombia’s Coffee Growers’ Federation, welcomed Brazil’s export measures and said they clarified the market situation. He told journalists the measures “set the rules clearly” and helped dissipate whatever doubts the market might have had about the world’s biggest exporter’s policies. Brazil’s coffee institute, IBC, today opened export registrations for May with no quantity limit set. The contribution quota will be 15 pct of the minimum registration price, which will vary daily.

The Bundesbank could announce today that it will lift its veto on the private holding of European Currency Unit (ECU) liabilities, banking sources said. But this would probably be the only significant news from today’s council session, brought forward from its usual Thursday date because of the Corpus Christi holiday here. The Bundesbank is not expected to change credit policy. The sources said Bundesbank officials had been working out technical and legal problems with the ECU since the subject was discussed in the presence of federal finance minister Gerhard Stoltenberg on May 7.

U.S. exporters will have the opportunity to sell 170,000 tonnes of wheat to West African countries under the Export Enhancement Program, the U.S. Agriculture Department said. It said in addition to Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo, four more countries – Burkina Faso, Gabon, Liberia and Niger – have been declared eligible under the initiative. The export sales will be subsidized with commodities from the inventory of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), it said.

The prospect of renewed assaults on the dollar might force the United States eventually to unveil distasteful measures to bolster support for its currency, monetary analysts and economists said. Treasury Secretary James Baker has acknowledged that the Reagan administration discussed the possibility of issuing yen-denominated U.S. government bonds to support the dollar. But he has also dismissed speculation that he was ready to take such an unusual step. Nonetheless, monetary sources say the issue has been seriously discussed by the administration.

Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, facing an increasingly violent wave of labour unrest, has told Spaniards he is determined to bring down inflation even if it means slower growth and fewer votes for his Socialist Party. In a 50-minute television interview broadcast live, Gonzalez criticized widespread protests which have blown up less than a year after he won a resounding general election victory. “It seems so important to us that sometimes I ask myself ‘Why don’t they understand when I explain this?

The Ministry of Agriculture left its estimates of French winter cereal sowings for the 1986/87 campaign barely changed at 6.606 mln hectares compared with its previous forecast of 6.601 mln. This compared with the 6.41 mln ha of winter cereals harvested in the 1985/86 campaign. Winter soft wheat sowings were put at 4.647 mln ha compared with its previous estimate of 4.651 mln and 4.57 mln ha harvested last campaign. Winter barley plantings were forecast at 1.