US private companies shed jobs last month for the first time since December 2020 as the Omicron coronavirus variant again complicated business -- a potential harbinger of bad news for the upcoming government employment report.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Wednesday called for a peaceful resolution to the standoff between Russia and Ukraine, noting it is already contributing to a spike in energy prices and hurting global growth.

Turkey’s inflation hit a two-decade high near a whopping 50 per cent in January, official data showed Thursday, as a currency crisis decimated people’s purchasing power and complicated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s path to re-election.

Sri Lanka was handed temporary relief from energy shortages and rolling blackouts on Wednesday with a $500 million loan from India to finance urgent oil purchases for the cash-strapped nation.

Google’s parent firm Alphabet announced quarterly profits Tuesday that beat expectations and nearly doubled in 2021 -- after a booming holiday season for the online ads giant facing anti-trust regulation scrutiny.

Opec+ will likely stick to existing policies of moderate output increases on Wednesday, five sources from the producers’ group said even as it expects demand to rise to new peaks this year and as oil prices trade near their highest since 2014.

India will introduce a state-backed  “digital rupee” and impose a 30 per cent tax on profits from virtual currencies, the government announced Tuesday while unveiling the next financial year’s budget.

Euro zone inflation rose to a new record high last month, defying expectations for a big drop and adding to already copious doubts that price pressures are as benign and temporary as the European Central Bank still expects.

Hybrid car sales reached a milestone in Europe last year as they grabbed the same market share as diesel vehicles, while electric models gained more ground, industry data showed on Wednesday.

Volvo Car Group’s sales fell 20.2 per cent in January under pressure from the global component shortage, though demand for its products remained strong, the automaker said on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia has launched investments worth $6.4 billion in future technologies, the Saudi minister of communication and information technology said on Tuesday, as the kingdom races to diversify its economy from oil in the face of fierce regional competition.

The consumption of palm oil in Bangladesh increased by 7 per cent in the last eight years to reach 13.5 lakh tonnes in 2021, according to findings revealed at a webinar.

India will allocate an additional 195 billion rupees ($2.62 billion) to boost investment in solar equipment manufacturing, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said yesterday.

Japan’s top currency diplomat Masato Kanda said a weak yen has both merits and demerits for the economy due to the country’s changing export patterns and increasing reliance on imports.

Mexico’s economy contracted for a second straight quarter in the last three-month period of 2021, according to official data published on Monday, putting it in a technical recession and joining regional powerhouse Brazil, whose economy fell back into negative territory last year.

Asian markets rose in limited trade Tuesday following another strong lead from Wall Street fuelled by a rebound in tech firms, while comments from Federal Reserve officials eased concerns that it will embark on an aggressive phase of policy tightening.

The IMF and World Bank once again postponed the annual meetings set to take place in Morocco, pushing them back another year to October 2023, the institutions announced Monday.

Food inflation in crisis-hit Sri Lanka hit a record 25 per cent in January, the statistics office said Tuesday, with crop failures and difficulties in financing imports leading to widespread shortages.

India’s government will step up spending to 39.45 trillion rupees ($529.7 billion) in the coming fiscal year to build public infrastructure and drive economic growth, it said on Tuesday, but it involves a wider fiscal deficit than targeted and record borrowing.

India will allocate an additional 195 billion rupees ($2.62 billion) to boost investment in solar equipment manufacturing, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday.