China’s factory gate inflation hit a 13-year high in August driven by roaring raw materials prices despite Beijing’s attempts to cool them, putting more pressure on manufacturers in the world’s second-largest economy.

Ford Motor Company will stop manufacturing cars in India and shut down its plants in the country, two sources told Reuters, becoming the latest automaker to quit a market still dominated by Asian rivals. 

US economic growth  “downshifted slightly” in July and August amid shortages of workers and materials, as well as concerns about the rise of the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.

As a nurse at one of Kabul’s main hospitals, Latifa Alizada was the breadwinner for her family, providing for her three young boys and unemployed husband.Now -- since the Taliban rolled into Afghanistan’s capital -- she too is jobless, and worried about the future.

Oil prices rose on Wednesday, paring overnight losses, with producers in the US Gulf of Mexico struggling to restart operations nine days after Hurricane Ida swept through.

The Lebanese government said on Wednesday it was working with the World Bank to secure financing for a plan to import Egyptian gas via Jordan and Syria to generate power for Lebanon, which is struggling with an economic crisis and acute power shortages. 

The Indian government is considering allowing foreign institutional investors to buy up to a total of 20 per cent in state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), a government source said on Wednesday, as it presses ahead with a stake sale.  

British business organisations criticised Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans to increase taxes to pay for health and social care reform, saying they added to the burden on firms struggling due to the Covid-19 pandemic and would cost jobs.

Finance ministers from the world’s seven wealthiest nations are set to meet later this week to discuss global tax reform, according to the UK Treasury on Tuesday.

El Salvador on Tuesday became the first country to embrace bitcoin as legal tender, with consumer demand crashing its brand-new cyber  “wallet” system even as the currency’s value seesawed against the US dollar.

Japan’s economy grew faster than the initially estimated in the April-June quarter, helped by solid capital expenditure, although a resurgence in Covid-19 is undermining service-sector consumption and clouding the outlook.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has loaned Tanzania more than half a billion dollars in emergency financing as the coronavirus pandemic drags on its economy and critical tourism sector.

The European Central Bank could tighten policy sooner than many expect as inflationary pressures could prove to be persistent, ECB policymaker Robert Holzmann said in a contribution to Eurofi Magazine on Wednesday. 

South Africa’s state-owned insurance company Sasria is in talks with National Treasury for a larger bailout than the 3.9 billion rand ($272 million) already promised, its managing director told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday.

Singapore-based Agrocorp Pte International yesterday got the contract to supply 50,000 tonnes of wheat to the Directorate General (DG) of Food, according to a decision of the cabinet committee on purchase.

Japan’s former foreign minister Fumio Kishida, a strong contender to become next prime minister, has called for a package of more than 30 trillion yen ($273 billion) to cushion the blow from the coronavirus pandemic, a magazine reported.

British house prices rose sharply last month in a further sign of strong momentum in the market even after the partial withdrawal of tax breaks on property purchases, a survey from mortgage lender Halifax showed on Tuesday.

Deutsche Telekom has struck a share-swap deal with Softbank Group to increase its stake in US unit T-Mobile and sold its Dutch unit in a major restructuring that strengthens the German group’s transatlantic focus.

German industrial production rose in July after falling for three straight months amid supply chain troubles that held the economy back, data published on Tuesday showed.

Thousands of Indian farmers gathered in a large grain market outside New Delhi on Tuesday, protesting new agricultural laws they say threaten their livelihoods and actions by police during similar demonstrations last week.