The United States and a group of Asian allies on Friday agreed on a set of negotiating targets, notably on trade and supply chains, as Washington looks to offer an alternative to the economic might of China in the region.

Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss on Wednesday readied the final details of a plan to tackle soaring energy bills, which looks likely to cool inflation but add more than 100 billion pounds ($115 billion) to the country’s borrowing.

Britain’s battered pound fell to its lowest level against the US dollar since 1985 on Wednesday, lurching lower as investors dumped British assets in the face of a bleak economic outlook and the soaring dollar.

India’s finance minister said on Thursday that importing Russian oil was part of the country’s inflation-management strategy and that other countries were doing something similar.

The European Central Bank raised its key interest rates by an unprecedented 75 basis points on Thursday and signalled further hikes, prioritising the fight against inflation even as the bloc’s economy is heading for a likely winter recession.

Deutsche Bank chief Christian Sewing, painting a bleaker assessment of the German economy, warned on Wednesday that China was a considerable risk for the nation and that Europe needed big banks to fend off American competitors.

The threat of recession is rising in Europe, a top EU official warned on Wednesday, as skyrocketing energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine punish the economy.

Saudi Arabia’s real gross domestic product expanded by 12.2 per cent in the second quarter compared with the same period of 2021, data showed on Wednesday, as the world’s top oil exporter reaps the rewards of high crude prices and a post-pandemic recovery.

Oil prices rose on Wednesday on threats that Russia will walk away from its energy supply contracts, reversing losses from earlier in the session when prices fell to their lowest since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Chinese shipments to and from Russia accelerated in August compared with a month earlier, contrasting with slower flows elsewhere amid weak global demand.

China’s exports and imports lost momentum in August with growth significantly missing forecasts as surging inflation crippled overseas demand and fresh Covid curbs and heatwaves disrupted output, reviving downside risks for the shaky economy.

Qatar’s central bank has told banks in the Gulf state not to exchange its currency with entities outside the country without prior permission, five sources told Reuters, in a move, bankers say aims at ending the riyal’s divergence against the dollar.

India’s battered rupee will trade not far from its lifetime low against the US dollar into next year and remain vulnerable to a worsening trade balance and an aggressive US Federal Reserve rate-hiking campaign, according to a Reuters poll.

Bangladesh and India should address the non-tariff barriers to facilitate and boost bilateral trade, said Md Jashim Uddin, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI).

British shoppers are cutting back on purchases of clothes and other non-essential items as they try to cover their sky-rocketing utility bills and higher food prices, surveys showed on Tuesday.

South Africa’s economy shrank in the second quarter, as floods and an energy crisis put a halt to months of growth, official data showed Tuesday.

The hit to the euro zone economy and its currency from a deepening energy crisis is so severe that more aggressive monetary tightening from the European Central Bank will do little to stop the euro’s slide.

Finland and Switzerland provided billions in financial support to power companies on Tuesday, as Europe scrambles to secure energy supplies in a deepening crisis sparked by Russia’s move to shut a major gas pipeline.

Russia has raked in a whopping 158 billion euros ($158 billion) in energy exports in the six months following its invasion of Ukraine, with the EU accounting for more than half, a think tank said Tuesday.

German industrial orders slumped for the sixth consecutive month in July, official data showed Tuesday, raising the spectre that a recession was looming in Europe’s biggest economy.