City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open unchanged from Friday's close of 6,484, ahead of GDP releases in various small - but crisis prone - periphery economies such as Cyprus and Greece.

Also on the agenda today is the German balance of trade reading and RPI, as well as the country's current account and factory orders, and EU Harmonised competitiveness indicators.

In UK company news, software group Anite said third quarter trading reflected a relatively quiet seasonal period but it remains confident about the outturn for the year as a whole. Anite, which provides software solutions to the international wireless and leisure travel industries, said trading in the quarter ended January 31st 2013 contrasted with an unusually strong third quarter last year, which was driven by high demand from Handset Testing customers investing in initial 4G LTE systems at the end of the 2011 budget year.

Real estate investment trust Great Portland Estates has acquired Orchard Court, a 47,762 square-foot retail and office property located on Portman Square in West London. The asset was purchased from Rosanna Holdings for £37m, reflecting a net initial yield of 4.64% and a capital value of £775 per square foot.

Betting group Ladbrokes has unveiled plans to extend its relationship with Playtech, the AIM-listed online gaming software company, as part of the former's 're-invigoration' of its Digital business. Playtech will create a new e-commerce and digital marketing services operation, to be integrated with the company's existing Digital teams in London and Gibraltar, and will also give Ladbrokes access to its full product suite and technology, which will see the launch of a new 'Vegas' tab on Ladbrokes.com. In due course Ladbrokes will also migrate to Playtech's download casino and poker products.

International Airlines Group has issued a statement saying that it has opted to accept a proposal put forth by a mediator regarding its Spanish airline division Iberia, putting an end to the conflict involving job cuts. The mediator proposed reducing the number of job cuts to 3,141, rather than the planned 3,807, with redundancy pay of 35 days for every year worked, as opposed to 20, according to Reuters.

Related share prices
Ladbrokes (LAD) share price
Great Portland Estates (GPOR) share price
Anite (AIE) share price
Playtech (PTEC) share price
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) share price