Finance Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg reaffirmed his commitment to the Louvre accord struck in Paris where leading industrialised countries agreed to stabilise the dollar around then current levels. He told a congress of West German tax advisers in Hamburg the policy agreed in Paris has so far been successful in the mark/dollar relationship. “We want to continue it (the policy),” Stoltenberg said. According to a text of his remarks released in Bonn, he also said trade tensions in specific branches had to be overcome and he warned against any return to protectionism.

The Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service announced several temporary steps to enable it to respond more quickly to the high demand for Commodity Credit Corp.-owned soybeans. The CCC has suspended its practice of contacting storing warehousemen before selling soybeans for cash to a third party, said Collyn Peterson, deputy director in the ASCS Kansas City office. In addition, he said, minimum quantities for sales will be 25,000 bushels, or all of a warehouse total inventory if less than that.

The European Community (EC) executive Commission will today urgently consider whether to take a new initiative to break the current deadlock over reform of the bloc’s farm policy and to ease its budgetary crisis. The Commission will meet in Strasbourg following what diplomats described as a largely fruitless special joint meeting of farm and finance ministers on the issue in Luxembourg Monday. Commission officials said farm commissioner Frans Andriessen will ask the 17-man body for permission to present farm ministers with a compromise plan revising proposals for 1987/88 farm prices which have divided them since they were first announced in March.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl has decided to keep Bundesbank President Karl Otto Poehl in office for a further eight years, the news magazine Der Spiegel said. Government officials were not immediately available to comment on the report, which said that because Poehl is a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Kohl had not taken the decision lightly. Poehl has been Bundesbank chief since January 1, 1980, while Kohl’s conservative/liberal coalition has held power since 1982.

Good soaking rain is boosting the sugar cane crop in the key Mackay region of Queensland following a prolonged dry spell relieved only by intermittent falls, an Australian Sugar Producers Association spokesman told Reuters. The rains began late last week, developed into heavy downpours over the weekend and are continuing today, he said from Brisbane. The Mackay and Burdekin regions, which together grow about half the Australian cane crop, have been the Queensland cane areas hardest hit by unseasonal dry weather since December.

The Nigerian naira firmed against the dollar, banking sources said, after the rules governing foreign exchange auctions at the central bank were changed. The marginal rate set at today’s auction, from which reporters were barred for the first time since the sessions began last September, was 3.7001 to the dollar compared with 4.0002 at the last session on March 19, the sources said. Under the new system unveiled on March 20 and in operation for the first time today, bidding banks must pay for foreign exchange at the rate they bid, rather than as previously at the rate of the lowest successful bid.

European Community (EC) leaders hope to make a new attempt to inject fresh urgency into talks on reforming the bloc’s controversial farm policy when EC agriculture ministers meet for a third day of discussions here this morning. Community officials said farm commissioner Frans Andriessen met Belgian minister Paul de Keersmaeker late last night to plan a new initiative. Both Andriessen and de Keersmaeker, who currently chairs EC farm ministers’ meetings, were said to be disappointed by the lack of progress in the talks so far this week.

Treasury Secretary James Baker has cancelled a trip to Australia because of pressing business at home, including the visit this week by Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, a Treasury spokesman said. The spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said: “I would not draw any conclusion from the cancellation…I would just say it’s the press of business.” But he added that the visit by the Japanese leader was “part of the press of business.

The Reagan Administration is considering tax incentives to boost oil output and restore 100,000 jobs, U.S. Energy Secretary John Herrington said. A tax credit for new exploration would be part of a package to bring 1,000 idle drilling rigs back into operation and raise domestic production by one mln barrels a day, he said. The tax status of exploration might also be changed, Herrington told reporters at the World Petroleum Congress.

Senate majority leader Robert Byrd said he wants the Senate to pass by late Friday a fiscal 1988 budget that starts reducing the flow of U.S. debt. The Democratic leader told a news conference and later the Senate itself that the Senate would debate the measure today even though technically the first procedural vote –on formally bringing up the vital measure for action–would not take place until tomorrow afternoon. The pending budget would cut some 38 billion dlrs from an anticipated deficit that would occur without any action.