India's planned sugar export tax of 25 percent, intended to maintain local supplies, could boost opportunities for Indian refiners who unlike mills will not be subject to the tax, enabling them to sell to places such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Iran is gradually restoring banking links with the rest of the world by forging ties with smaller foreign institutions, even though large global banks are still holding back because of legal risks, Iranian officials and foreign bankers say.

A major underground marketplace acting like an eBay for criminals is selling access to more than 70,000 compromised servers allowing buyers to carry out widespread cyber-attacks around the world, security experts said on Wednesday.

The world's biggest banks including Citi and Goldman Sachs will draft in senior traders to work through the night following Britain's referendum on EU membership, set to be among the most volatile 24 hours for markets in a quarter of a century.

British Finance Minister George Osborne, battling to keep the country in the EU, warned voters that he will take new austerity measures if they decide to leave the bloc in next week's referendum.

The US government's development finance institution has launched operations in Myanmar with a $250 million loan to a telecoms company, it said on Wednesday.

Prosecutors on Wednesday raided Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co., one of South Korea's three giant shipbuilders, as part of a probe into a $2 billion accounting fraud.

Japan's economy expanded at a slightly faster pace than first thought, revised figures showed Wednesday, knocking hopes that the central bank will unleash fresh stimulus this month.

The EU warned Thailand on Tuesday to take "swift and determined" action against illegal fishing, or risk a European ban on its fish exports.

The European Central Bank on Wednesday took the unprecedented step of buying corporate bonds, its latest weapon in a desperate battle to kick-start sluggish growth and inflation in the eurozone.

South Africa's economy contracted by 1.2 percent at the start of the year in a surprise sharp downturn for Africa's most industrialised nation, official statistics showed Wednesday.

Oil prices held above $50 in Asia on Wednesday thanks to a weak dollar as traders await the release of US inventory data later in the day. Traders are expecting US Department of Energy weekly stockpile numbers to show another drop after recent losses, helping to build on a 90 percent rebound in the commodity since the start of the year.

China's imports decreased at their slowest pace in more than a year-and-a-half in May, official data showed Wednesday, in a possible sign domestic demand in the world's second-largest economy may be recovering.

Brazil's annual inflation rate crept up last month to 9.32 percent, officials said Wednesday, sounding new alarm bells for Latin America's largest economy as it struggles through a deep recession.

Russian oil giant Rosneft said Wednesday that low oil prices in the first quarter of the year had haemorrhaged its profits, with tumbled by 80 percent.

A worried World Bank slashed its growth forecast for the global economy Tuesday, saying advanced economies are rebounding more slowly than expected and low commodity prices continue to hurt other countries.

SIGNS are emerging that a downturn in the United States and China, the world's two biggest economies, may have bottomed out, the OECD's monthly leading indicator showed on Wednesday.

Germany Wednesday moved to slow the rapid growth of subsidised renewable energy to cap rising costs, drawing fire from environmentalists who charged it is betraying its ambitious climate goals.

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos has pledged to invest $3 billion in India, in a big bet on the growth of online shopping in the fast-growing South Asian economy.

More than 25 European and Asian-owned supertankers are shipping Iranian oil, data seen by Reuters shows, allowing Tehran to ramp up exports much faster than analysts had expected following the lifting of sanctions in January.