The chief executive of one of the world's biggest firms Royal Dutch Shell warned on Sunday that the oil and gas company would be negatively impacted were Britons to back leaving the European Union in a referendum.

Russian stock markets and the ruble fell further on Monday as the currency edged closer to a historic low on the back of a fresh slump in oil prices.

German automaker Daimler said Monday that its heavy goods vehicles unit, Daimler Trucks, planned a swift return to the Iranian market, after the US and EU lifted sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme.

China's embattled top securities regulator, Xiao Gang, has offered to resign, sources said, after perceived mismanagement wiped more than $5 trillion off the capitalisation of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets since they peaked last June.

WITH petroleum investment and the manufacturing sector sagging and the stock market in free fall, many Americans are wondering when they will begin to see the benefits of cheap oil.

CHINA will require foreign financial institutions in the country to hold yuan in reserve, the central bank said Monday as it seeks to stabilise the currency, which has been hit by capital flight.

Opec said Monday that it expects a "rebalancing process" to begin in 2016 as the sharp fall in the oil price causes production from non-cartel competitors such as the US to fall after seven years of "phenomenal" growth.

German companies are trying not to let themselves be spooked by the economic slowdown in China, even if they concede they are currently seeing a drop in demand for their products there.

The richest one percent of the world's population now own more than the rest of us combined, aid group Oxfam says, on the eve of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

US retail sales fell in December to cap the slowest year of growth since 2009, amid persistent downward pressure on prices, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Ukraine on Friday launched the first cargo train to China that will bypass Russia along a new "Silk Road" meant to counter the Kremlin's most stringent trade embargo on Kiev to date. "This is a historic event," Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pyvovarskiy wrote on

India's government and the country's central bank will over the next few months add to banks' ability to lend, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday, addressing a conference on start-up businesses.

EU citizens would have a harder time finding jobs and the economy would suffer should Europe's internal passport-free zone collapse

The Russian government is looking to privatise a 19.5 percent stake in state oil giant Rosneft to ease a budget crunch as oil prices

Indian entrepreneurs will receive generous tax breaks and face dramatically reduced red tape when starting and closing a business, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Saturday, as he launched a pet initiative to bolster India's fast-growing startup scene.

Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a new international development bank seen as a rival to the US-led World Bank at a lavish ceremony on Saturday, as Beijing seeks to change the unwritten rules of global development finance.

Greek unions on Friday announced a general strike against a planned overhaul of the country's ailing pensions system.

European fruit growers could be able to export apples and pears to the United States later this year, the EU executive said on Saturday, following the publication of new US rules.

China's bank lending declined sharply in December from November, the central bank said on Friday, despite moves to keep the world's second largest economy from slowing further with looser monetary policy.

OIL prices plummeted to $29 a barrel on Friday on the likely resumption soon of Iranian oil exports into an already flooded market as international sanctions against Iran are lifted, dragging equity indices around the world sharply lower.