France's central bank chief Francois Villeroy de Galhau said Monday that contested economy-boosting measures by the European Cental Bank had produced "tangible results", including tens of thousands of French jobs.

Leaving the European Union could cause a "serious shock" to Britain's economy, with the risk of losing almost one million jobs, according to a CBI business group study released Sunday.

Egypt said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia has offered $1.5 billion to help finance economic projects in the Sinai Peninsula, as Riyadh continues to bolster its ties with Cairo.

CONFRONTED with a plunge in its stock markets last year, China's central bank swiftly reached out to the US Federal Reserve, asking it to share its play book for dealing with Wall Street's "Black Monday" crash of 1987.

Singapore's DBS Group Holdings is seen leading the race to buy British bank Barclays' Hong Kong and Singapore private wealth units, valued at as much as $300 million, sources with knowledge of the situation said on Monday.

US industrial production fell in February, dragged lower by declines in mining, hit hard by falling energy prices, and in utilities amid unseasonably warm weather, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday.

Almost no one expects the Federal Reserve to announce another interest rate hike on Wednesday, but all eyes are focused on whether the US central bank turns more bullish in its outlook.

Britain unleashed a fresh wave of austerity on Wednesday in its latest annual budget and cut its growth outlook citing global markets turbulence rooted in China.

Oil prices rebounded in Asia Wednesday after a two-day sell-off fanned by concerns over planned talks between major producers to freeze output.

Opec members and key oil producers from outside the cartel will meet on April 17 in Doha in a bid to stabilise falling crude prices, Qatari energy minister Mohammed al-Sada said Wednesday.

Global economic growth did not translate into more harmful greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector last year, the IEA said on Wednesday, a strong indication that growth and increased pollution no longer go hand in hand.

Hisashi Aoto was not holding out much hope that his employer would give him a bumper pay rise this year as Japan's spring labour talks wrap up.

Women in Germany earn around one fifth less than men, a wider gap than the European average, but the shortfall is narrower in the east of the country, official data showed on Wednesday.

The doomsayers were 100 percent certain that the internet would be the death of travel agents.

DEUTSCHE Boerse AG and London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LSE) agreed to combine in a $30 billion deal to create a European trading powerhouse better able to compete with US rivals encroaching on their turf.

CHINA'S economy will not suffer a "hard landing", Premier Li Keqiang said Wednesday, stepping up Beijing's charm offensive to reassure investors that the government can manage slowing growth.

ONLINE shopping carts are transforming the face of China's economy, changing supply chains, and putting pricing power in the hands of its 1.37 billion consumers.

Google has failed to overturn a Russian ruling that said it broke competition laws by tying together its Android services to ensure its apps were pre-installed on smartphones and tablets.

The number of child labourers aged 14 or below in India dropped to 4.5 million in 2011 from 12.6 million a decade before, said the country's labour minister, urging lawmakers to approve planned changes to existing legislation to curb the problem.

Indian authorities have sent Cairn Energy a tax bill for $4.4 billion, the company said Tuesday, the latest chapter in a long-running row that has stoked foreign firms' fears of retrospective tax demands.