Striking dockers brought the Canary Island port of Las Palmas to a halt today but called off a stoppage in Spain’s main port of Barcelona after winning the reinstatement of a sacked worker, port officials said. They said about 15 freighters were affected in Las Palmas as talks on dockers’ demands to reinstate five workers went on. A stoppage was also called off in Santa Cruz, on Tenerife. Union sources said the strike would continue in Las Palmas tomorrow and would spread unless the demands were met, with a strike threatened in all ports for two hours on Thursday, four on Friday, six on Saturday and every other hour from May 4-11.

Karl Otto Poehl is likely to be re-elected President of the Bundesbank when his current term in office expires at the end of this year, government sources said. They were commenting on a report in Der Spiegel news magazine which said Chancellor Helmut Kohl had decided to keep Poehl in office for another eight years. Government spokesman Friedhelm Ost had no comment on the report, other than to say that the subject of the Bundesbank presidency was not currently under discussion.

The Reagan administration is expected to face tough resistance from Japan and from some entrenched U.S. interests, if it hopes to succeed in forcing Japan to end beef and citrus import controls by April, 1988, U.S. and Japanese officials said. Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng and Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter took a hardline stance on beef and citrus in talks here last week, insisting that the quotas be abandoned by April, 1988.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) said it has applied to form a new holding company because of uncertainties relating to lawsuits filed over the 1985 tin crisis. The new company, to be called The London Metal Exchange Ltd, would replace a two-tiered committee and board structure with a single managing board by the end of July. The exchange said it took the steps after the Securities and Investments Board said unresolved legal tussles resulting from the tin crisis of October 1985 might prevent acceptance of the LME’s application to become a Recognized Investment Exchange.

Several industrial nations are pressing the United States to consider whether its debt strategy, under increasing fire in the developing world, needs to be strengthened, monetary sources say. While few nations are ready to pour vast sums of money into radical “debt relief” style solutions to the debt crisis, pressure is building for a greater International Monetary Fund role in the plan. But U.S. officials, who are fighting off demands for change by Congress, are confident they will retain support for their strategy which will probably be endorsed in a communique issued by the IMF’s policy-making Interim Committee.

The Bank of Japan is carefully watching the recent rapid rise of the Tokyo stock and yen bond markets for their impact on inflation, governor Satoshi Sumita said. In a statement to the bank’s regional branch managers, Sumita said the central bank was particularly monitoring the markets because of the recent rapid growth of money supply. He said he is also carefully watching real estate prices. Sumita said he expects money supply growth to remain high from April through June.

Petroleos de Venezuela, PDVSA, the state owned oil company, has re-established posted prices for some light products and heavy fuel oil, industry sources in New York said. The return to posted prices is a sign that the market is returning to a more stable and orderly condition after a year of volatile price movements in which Venezuela ceased posting prices and moved to negotiating prices with companies. “We are in more stable market now and PDVSA has probably decided to return to postings for some products,” one industry trade source said.

Economics Minister Martin Bangemann, who flies to Washington this weekend for high level talks, said boosting West German economic growth would not have any significant effect on the high U.S. Current account deficit. In a paper prepared ahead of his trip, Bangemann said Bonn’s trading partners had been asking whether West German growth was slowing and whether the Federal Republic should not in the future pursue more strongly expansionary policies.

Olin Corp said it formed a joint venture with the Yamaha Group of Japan’s Nippon-Gakki Co Ltd to manufacture Olin’s high-performance copper alloys in Japan for sale in the Far East. The new firm, Yamaha-Olin Metal Corp, will share facilities with Yamaha in Iwata, which are expected to come on line in the third quarter of 1988., it said. The two companies first joined forces in August 1983 when Yamaha agreed to process and market one of Olin’s alloys.

The Bank of Japan will sell 600 billion yen in 60-day financing bills tomorrow through 36-day repurchase agreements maturing June 3 to roll over a previously issued 400 billion yen of such bills maturing tomorrow, money traders said. The yield on the bills for sale to banks and securities houses by money houses will be 3.8498 pct compared with the one-month commercial bill discount rate today of 3.8125 pct and the one-month certificate of deposit rate of 4.