A coronavirus lockdown in Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, threatens to shrink the country’s economy in the third quarter, with a slow vaccine rollout adding to the headwinds. 

British inflation surged further above the Bank of England’s target in June to strike 2.5 per cent, its highest since August 2018, placing a new focus on the BoE’s plan to keep its huge stimulus programme in place. 

Singapore’s economy contracted in the second quarter after battling new outbreaks of Covid-19 but economists expect it to get back on track quickly as global growth picks up and vaccination rates rise. 

Germany’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis is at full swing, and the outlook for the industry remains positive despite supply bottlenecks for intermediate products, the German Economy Ministry said on Wednesday. 

Japan’s economy will grow at a slower pace than initially expected in the third quarter, as fresh coronavirus emergency curbs in Tokyo, extending through the Olympic Games, weigh on consumption, a Reuters poll found. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted businesses to rapidly digitize their operations, leading to a surge in productivity in the United States, Goldman Sachs analysts said. 

European Union foreign ministers agreed on Monday to launch a global infrastructure plan linking Europe to the world, its latest step after deals with India and Japan and a similar pledge by the Group of Seven richest democracies. 

The European Central Bank’s meeting next week will see policymakers discuss changing the forward guidance they give on the direction of policy following the ECB’s shift to a more symmetrical 2 per cent inflation target. 

The European Union is set to take the lead in climate policy action among the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters this week, with a raft of ambitious plans designed to cut emissions drastically over the next decade. 

China’s southern Guangdong province said it plans to build a common data platform for the Greater Bay Area that includes Hong Kong and Macau, and will build a data trading market in Shenzhen - part of efforts to regulate data more thoroughly. 

Saudi Arabia and Oman called on Monday for continued cooperation between OPEC and other allied producers to stabilise and balance the oil market, the Gulf states said in a joint statement, Trend reports with reference to Reuters. 

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Monday it has issued a draft three-year action plan to develop the country’s cyber-security industry, estimating the sector may be worth more than 250 billion yuan ($38.6 billion) by 2023.

The European Commission will delay its plan to put forward a new levy on digital services later in July, a spokesman said on Monday, following intense pressure from the US administration. 

Spain will invest 4.3 billion euros ($5.1 billion) to kick-start the production of electric vehicles and batteries as part of a major national spending programme financed mostly by European Union recovery funds, the government said on Monday. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the government-run plan would include the whole production chain, giving grants to companies with the goal of building the country’s first battery plant and boosting manufacturing of electric vehicles.

Countries should be able to tax a quarter of big multinationals’ profits no matter where they are earned, France proposed on Saturday at a G20 finance ministers meeting focused on overhauling the rules for cross-border corporate taxation. 

Lisbon’s restaurant owners, already struggling to survive without the usual hordes of summer tourists, expressed consternation at a new measure implemented on Saturday requiring tests or a vaccination certificate to sit indoors.

Egypt’s revenue from the Suez Canal for the 2017-2018 financial year rose 11.5 per cent to a record high $5.585 billion (4.20 billion pounds), the canal authority said in a statement on its website on Sunday.

Finance chiefs of the G20 large economies endorsed a landmark move to stop multinationals shifting profits to low-tax havens at talks on Saturday where they will also warn that coronavirus variants threaten the global economic recovery. 

Malaysia’s government and state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) are seeking over $5.6 billion in damages from KPMG partners for alleged breaches and negligence linked to a corruption scandal at the fund, court documents seen by Reuters showed. 

India’s fuel demand recovered last month after slumping to a nine-month low in May, as restrictions to curb the spread of the pandemic were eased and mobility picked up.