China, one of the most visited countries in the world, has seen sharply fewer tourists this year — with worsening air pollution partly to blame.

Numbers of foreign visitors have declined following January's "Airpocalypse," when already eye-searing levels of smog soared to new highs.

The rate of inflation in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, continued to climb in July to reach the highest level seen this year, final data showed on Tuesday.

The cost of living rose 1.9 percent this month on a 12-month basis, up from 1.8 percent in June, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.

China is set to overtake the United States as the world's largest net oil importer from October, according to U.S. figures, due to a combination of rising Chinese demand and increased U.S. production.

Next year, China's net oil imports will exceed those of the United States on an annual basis and the gap between them will continue to widen, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.

Russia's economy minister said on Monday that dramatically slowing growth indicated the country had entered a period of possibly prolonged stagnation but that an outright recession was avoidable.

Alexei Ulyukayev's comments came after the first initial estimate on Friday showed that second-quarter growth slowed to 1.2 percent in annual terms compared with 1.6 percent over the first three months of 2013.

Germany's central bank expects Greece to receive another bail-out loan later this year or by early 2014, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday, citing an internal Bundesbank document.

The bank's experts however rated the risks of the international loan program as "exceptionally high" and the Greek government's performance as "barely satisfactory", the magazine said.

South Korea ordered government offices to turn off their air-conditioning as two power plants stopped operations Monday, a day after a minister warned of an imminent national energy crisis.

The Dangjin III plant, with a capacity of 500,000 kilowatts, was taken offline by mechanical issues and will likely remain shut for a week, a spokesman for the state power distributor Korea Power Exchange (KPE) said.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Sunday that there has been "no change" in the country's 2013 growth forecast, after it appeared the figure had been revised downward.

"There was no change in the growth forecast as I have read it," the minister told journalists in Paris.

Japan's economic growth slowed in the April-June quarter, official data showed Monday, raising questions about whether Tokyo's bid to stoke growth was taking hold and if it would launch a series of tax hikes.

The fresh figures paint a mixed picture of firming consumer consumption but little evidence that firms are confident enough to start big spending on investment.

The dollar Friday advanced against some major currencies, recovering somewhat from recent declines ahead of a busier week of U.S. economic data.

Near 2200 GMT, the euro traded at $1.3338 Friday, down from $1.3380 Thursday.

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group has said it plans to sell some of its Indian assets, including its credit card and mortgage business, to a domestic bank as it disposes of more of its once sprawling empire.

RBS, now more than 80 percent owned by the British government following the 2008 global financial crisis, plans to sell its business banking, credit card business and mortgage loan portfolio to India's Ratnakar Bank, the two banks said.