But Barclays insists it is planning an investment programme in the rest of the branch

But Barclays insists it is planning an investment programme in the rest of the branch network.. HOPES SURGED last night of an breakthrough in talks to admit China to the World Trade Organisation ahead of the new round of global trade talks. Charlene Barshefsky, the United States trade representative, delayed her departure from China yesterday to stay for a fifth day of talks after Premier Zhu Rongji intervened. China's decision to ask the US delegation to stay could indicate that negotiators believe they can reach a last-minute deal, observers said. Salomon Smith Barney estimates the average costs of a transaction in a branch is 67.5p. For telephone banking it is 37p and the Internet costs just 7.5p.

Barclays will consult with Unifi, the union that represents most Barclays staff, as part of its partnership agreement A spokesman said the bank had been reshaping its operations to put greater focus on new outlets such as Internet banking, and increasing the number of ATMs, better known as "hole-in-the wall" cash machines. There are more than 25,000 cash machines in Britain and the rise of automated banking in any form and the shift of back-office processing to dedicated centres mean costly branches are not needed.Customer research has shown the number of customers using branches regularly has fallen from more than to half to almost a third in recent years Branch costs are still high. The closure programme is expected to lead to the loss of an average two employees per branch. Barclays has 1,900 branches, the second largest estate after Lloyds TSB. The industry has cut 4,000 since 1990, Barclays has shut only 150. That, along with narrowing the gender pay gap, is the right focus for policy, says Mr Robinson.. UP TO 500 high street banking jobs will be axed as part of plans by Barclays Bank to close 200 branches next year, more than doubling the number of branches it has shut in the past nine years, and saving nearly pounds 10m in annual costs No decision has been taken on the exact number or location.

However, it is not clear, Mr Robinson argues, that it would be a good idea to get more of them into work."We know that low incomes are very damaging, but in controlling for income it is not clear how far work brings additional benefits, and if so how many hours of work are necessary," he says.Policies should focus not on getting more lone mothers into jobs, thereby boosting the female employment rate, but rather on increasing their incomes through benefits and on facilitating choice. Their difficulty in finding work is disguised by the fact that many are ineligible to claim benefits.In addition, lone parents, who also have a low employment rate, are almost all lone mothers. At the same time, male employment has risen as quickly as female employment during the same period.Nor are certain groups of men - such as the over-55s and the disabled - worse affected by very low employment rates, as is often assumed, says the report. "It is often assumed that when we talk about the inactive disabled and the over-50s, we are mainly talking about men, especially those displaced from manual work." But in fact the proportion of women not working due to disability is just as high, Mr Robinson says. The prediction that women will soon account for half the number of people in work is based on the rapid increase in the female participation rate between 1984 and 1990.But in the six years of economic recovery since 1993, there has been hardly any rise; women made up 44 per cent of the employed workforce in both 1993 and 1999. It is parity in pay, not in employment rates, that should be the focus for policy," he writes. In any case, contrary to popular myth, women are not poised to make up half the workforce in the UK. Peter Robinson, an economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research, says policy makers should not worry about the gender gap in terms of employment rates "Far more important is the continuing gender pay gap.

THE MYTH of equal female participation in the workplace is diverting attention from the need to tackle the huge gap between men's and women's incomes, according to new research by a leading think-tank. The German economy has on average expanded at an annual 1.4 per cent in the 1990s, with the costs of reunification holding back growth.. THE GERMAN economy will grow by up to 3 per cent next year, and unemployment fall by 300,000, Economics Minister Werner Muller said yesterday. "We will have economic growth nearer to 3 per cent than to 2.5 per cent," Mr Muller told Bild am Sonntag. The forecast matches the view of Chancellor Gerhard Schroder (pictured), but is more optimistic than that of Finance Minister Hans Eichel, who sees growth in 2000 at 2.5 per cent.