London pre-open: FTSE to track Asian stocks higher

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open up 17 points from yesterday's close of 5,824, tracking gains seen in Asian markets overnight following China's central bank's decision to provide the country's banks with liquidity. The People's Bank of China last night announced plans to bolster the country's banking system with 220bn yuan ($34.6bn) through reverse-repurchase operations in an effort to boost growth.Furthermore, some press reports are indicating that the government may implement new measures to butress domestic consumption.UK public finance data for the month of July will be released at 09:30. Consensus expects the public sector net borrowing requirement (excluding interventions) to fall to -£2.2bn. The Confederation of British Industry´s (CBI) industrial trends survey´s results for August will be published at 11:00. The headline total orders balance is expected to decline to -10 after -6 in the month before.US durable goods orders data is slated for release this afternoon. Investors will also be watching for any signs coming out from meetings between Eurozone leaders scheduled for today. With most commodity prices dropping by at least 15 per cent year-on-year, (y/y) profits at commodities producer and marketer Glencore took a significant hit in the first half of 2012. EBITDA slipped 17% y/y from $3,845m to $3,199m in the six months to June 30th. Nevertheless, the group said that it was 22% higher than the second half of 2011 and the annualised first half of 2012 is tracking closely to the full-year performance in 2011.UK banking giant Barclays is looking at combining the majority of its operations in Africa with its subsidiary Absa Group, in line with its strategy to operate as 'One Bank' across the continent. The proposed deal would involve the combination of Barclays´s interests in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and the Indian Ocean with Absa, with Barclays Bank PLC remaining as the majority shareholder of the combined African operations.Heritage Oil, an independent upstream exploration and production company, has said its wholly owned subsidiary, Heritage Energy Middle East, has signed binding agreements with Genel Energy for the sale of a 26 per cent interest in the production sharing contract relating to the Miran Block in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. In addition, a corresponding interest in the related joint operating agreement will be sold to Genel, together for a total cash consideration of $156m and a $294m exchangeable loan which will be provided on completion of the sale.