As she walks along a dirt road in central Malawi, Louise Abale carries her precious maize wrapped in a brightly coloured cloth and balanced on her head.

The Trans Pacific Partnership, one of the biggest multinational trade deals ever, is signed by ministers from its 12 member nations in New Zealand.

Taiwan's struggling smartphone maker HTC on Wednesday reported a third straight quarterly loss for October-December, although losses narrowed due to holiday season demand and the launch of a new phone.

Drug companies are likely to launch seven "blockbuster" drugs in 2016, each with $1 billion-plus annual sales potential, led by new treatments for liver disease and HIV, according to a Thomson Reuters analysis.

Chinese technology giant Lenovo on Wednesday posted its first revenue decline for six years due to slowing growth in the smartphone market and falling PC sales, sending its shares plummeting.

With China's growth slowing, ruthless competition and virtually no brand recognition, French carmaker Renault is banking on SUVs and a Transformers actress as it confronts an uphill struggle to break into the world's biggest car market.

Toyota said Wednesday that all its domestic parts plants would shut for a full day next week, expanding a production suspension that is set to be its longest since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

AT a stall in a Beirut exhibition hall, Syrian businesswoman Reem Abu Dahab displays her workshop's lacy pink and white nightgowns, hoping to attract increasingly elusive buyers.

OIL rose on Wednesday, paring earlier losses after fresh comments from Russia about its openness to talk with Opec over output cuts helped revive hope among investors that the world's largest producers could act to boost prices.

STATE-OWNED China National Chemical Corp. Wednesday offered $43 billion in an agreed takeover for Swiss pesticide and seed giant Syngenta, in what would be by far the biggest-ever overseas acquisition by a Chinese firm.

Police in Vietnam have arrested three senior former bankers and six securities officials over a fraud worth millions of dollars at a partly state-run bank, government media reported Wednesday.

General Motors Co (GM) on Wednesday said it plans to build and sell its first compact sedan in India in 2017, entering the country's fastest-growing passenger car segment as part of efforts to double market share by the end of the decade.

Japan's biggest banks tumbled in Tokyo share trading Monday as a drop in their latest earnings was compounded by fears that the Bank of Japan's new stimulus measures would hit their bottom line.

China's new home prices increased in January for the sixth straight month, a survey showed Monday, positive news for the key sector following a series of stimulus measures aimed at boosting lending.

Irish no-frills airline Ryanair said Monday that third-quarter net profit more than doubled on surging passenger numbers, and unveiled an 800-million-euro ($866-million) share buyback programme.

Chinese authorities have arrested 21 people on suspicion of defrauding around 900,000 people of more than 50 billion yuan ($7.6 billion), state media reported, after an online peer-to-peer lender turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme.

Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal on Monday cut its full-year sales and profit forecast amid a slowdown in China and other overseas markets.

South Korea's exports, the main driver of the national economy, suffered their sharpest drop in more than six years in January, extending what is now a 13-month losing streak.

January updates on Asia's mammoth factory sector released on Monday showed the New Year began much as the old one ended -- with too much capacity chasing too little demand.

Barclays and Credit Suisse will pay $154.3 million combined to settle charges that they violated federal securities laws over their so-called "dark pools," the US Securities and Exchange Commission said Sunday.