The International Monetary Fund is ready to discuss “options” with Sri Lanka if the government asks for financial support, its mission chief for the island told AFP on Thursday.

The US economy created far more jobs than expected in January but despite the disruption to consumer-facing businesses from a surge in Covid-19 cases, pointing to underlying strength that should sustain the expansion as the Federal Reserve starts to raise interest rates.

Britain on Friday ordered Facebook parent Meta to pay another £1.5 million for breaching regulatory rules over its acquisition of animated graphics startup Giphy.

Bitcoin hit its highest in two weeks on Saturday, extending the previous session’s strong gains as cryptocurrencies basked in a recovery in risk appetite and a rally in stock markets.

Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5 billion on Friday, promising to ramp up Russia's Far East exports at a time of heightened tension with European customers over Ukraine.

Sri Lanka has asked for  “advice” from the International Monetary Fund amid a worsening economic crisis, the finance minister said Wednesday, signalling Colombo could seek an international bailout.

Facebook’s parent firm Meta on Wednesday delivered a gloomy mix of a sharper-than-expected drop in profit, a decrease in users and threats to its ad business that plunged shares some 22 per cent in after-hours trading.

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.

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.

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.

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