British retailer Marks & Spencer will end its franchise agreement in Russia in the coming months and joined rivals in warning about the outlook for the current year amid a worsening cost-of-living crunch.

The United States will end an exemption allowing Moscow to pay foreign debt held by American investors with funds held in Russia, the US Treasury said Tuesday, a move that could push Vladimir Putin’s country closer to default.

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on Wednesday said it would sell its patented drugs on a not-for-profit basis to the world’s poorest countries, as part of a new initiative announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

German consumers remained troubled by the impact of the war in Ukraine despite a modest improvement in their confidence heading into June, according to a key survey published Wednesday.

Sales of electric cars accelerated last year but the availability of critical raw materials such as lithium risked slowing the sector’s growth, a report warned Monday.

India’s export duty hikes and tax cuts will likely hurt economic growth and raise the chances of the fiscal deficit widening, but do little to bring down retail prices within the central bank’s tolerance level, economists and industry officials said.

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka sharply hiked fuel prices to a record high on Tuesday, causing further pain to the country’s 22 million people in its worst crisis since independence.

India plans to restrict sugar exports for the first time in six years to prevent a surge in domestic prices and could cap this season’s exports at 8 million tonnes, government and industry sources told Reuters.

The Russian rouble strengthened to levels not seen since March 2018 against the dollar on Tuesday, boosted by export-focused companies selling foreign currency to pay taxes and shrugging off a slight easing of capital controls.

Palm oil prices in domestic wholesale and retail markets have started cooling off after Indonesia announced that it would resume exports of the product.

The Russian rouble firmed around 4 per cent against the dollar and euro on Monday, heading back towards multi-year highs hit last week, supported by capital controls and an upcoming month-end tax period.

Sri Lanka’s inflation hit a seventh consecutive record high in April as a petrol shortage worsened and food prices rose sharply, official data showed Monday.

Turkey is ready for energy cooperation with Israel after years of enmity, reviving a project to pipe Israeli gas to Europe as Ankara seeks to reduce its dependence on Russia.

A recession in the United States is not inevitable, President Joe Biden said Monday, while acknowledging the economic pain experienced by Americans as inflation soars.

Negative interest rates will soon be a thing of the past in the eurozone, the ECB’s chief signalled Monday, with the bank poised to raise rates for the first time in over a decade to tamp down soaring inflation.

Indonesia is due to resume exports of palm oil on Monday after a ban of more than three weeks, but industry traders and companies were awaiting details on accompanying rules to secure domestic supplies of the edible oil to control cooking oil prices.

In volatile currency markets, one trade stands out as an easy bet: selling the British pound.

When New Delhi banned wheat exports as prices soared over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine it provoked consternation abroad and drove the cereal even higher.

Chloe Kou, a 28-year old beauty brand marketing manager from Shanghai, won’t be buying her usual  “one or two” high-end handbags this year. Instead, she plans to save not spend, and that is a problem for luxury brands.

Hyundai Motor Group said on Sunday it would invest an additional $5 billion in the United States by 2025 to strengthen collaboration with US firms in advanced technology.