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.

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.

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.

British finance minister George Osborne warned Sunday of further spending cuts to come in the government budget.

Wanted: six full-time ninjas who have a way with words and can do backward handsprings. Pay: about $1,600 a month.

India's market regulator Saturday announced a clampdown on "wilful defaulters" as the government tackles mounting bad bank loans, days after tycoon Vijay Mallya left the country owing more than $1 billion.

With a huge global steel glut and slowing demand in China, an enormous recent spike in the price of iron ore has left analysts scratching their heads, with some even claiming a flower show might be to blame.

Burkhard Scholz, the manager of a four-star hotel on the wooded shore of a lake near Berlin, had 10 trainee jobs up for grabs last year. But he only found two people to fill them, one of whom was an asylum seeker from Afghanistan.

A year ago, Micromax vaulted past Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to become India's leading smartphone brand. Today, its market share has nearly halved, several top executives have resigned, and the company is looking for growth outside India.

Bangladesh is going to be the part of a joint initiative to establish a regional body in South Asia to enhance skills and capacity development of public sector officials and bankers.

German top-of-the-range carmaker BMW said Wednesday it clocked up record sales and profits in 2015 and would celebrate its centenary this year by increasing its dividend payout to shareholders.

Sri Lanka's government Tuesday announced a slew of emergency tax increases to help combat a debt crisis that has forced it to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the global economy faces a growing "risk of economic derailment."

FRANCE faced a wave of protests Wednesday against deeply unpopular labour reforms that have divided an already-fractured Socialist government and raised hackles in a country accustomed to iron-clad job security.