France's finance minister said Wednesday that the French public deficit would be "well below" EU limits by 2017, as he trimmed his deficit forecasts for next year.

Michel Sapin said that "new measures" announced in October would push France's 2015 deficit down to 4.1 percent of gross domestic product, compared with the 4.3 percent previously feared.

India on Wednesday announced a move to speed up approval for U.S. investments, just weeks after the two countries settled a global trade dispute and President Barack Obama agreed to visit.

A new Indian government committee will "identify bottlenecks" faced by U.S. firms wanting to invest in the country, where foreign companies must contend with byzantine regulations and large amounts of red tape.

Australian energy firms are having to reassess their investment strategies and outlook as oil prices sit at multi-year lows, with analysts warning of knock-on effects for the wider economy as it shifts away from resources-driven growth.

OPEC's decision to maintain output sent the price of oil plunging last week, extending a sell-off since June that has been fuelled by a supply glut and slow demand growth.

Indonesia is set to lead a boom in online shopping across Southeast Asia as Internet access explodes and investors pour money into a rapidly growing host of retail startups, analysts say. 

Much like China several years ago, the region is enjoying a rapid increase in web access that observers say is starting to drive a fundamental shift in shopping habits among the emerging middle class.

U.S. car manufacturers remain barred from doing business in Iran even though European automakers are eying huge deals as sanctions are eased against the Islamic republic, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

France's PSA Peugeot-Citroen was in "intense" talks about resuming production in Iran, halted since March 2012, a company representative said in Tehran on Monday at the start of the Iran Auto Show.

The Russian economy ministry on Tuesday slashed its economic forecast for 2015, announcing a contraction of 0.8 percent due to the pressure of Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis combined with falling oil prices.

The ministry cut its previous outlook of 1.2 percent growth by two percentage points, referring to worsening economic indicators and a "more conservative" assumption that Western sanctions will remain through 2015.

Iraq's government and the autonomous Kurdish region on Tuesday announced an agreement on resolving their longstanding disputes over the budget and oil exports, boosting prospects of closer cooperation against jihadists.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said the deal was approved during a cabinet meeting also attended by Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.

U.S. investigators Monday said the three-month grounding of the Boeing 787 in 2013 was due to a defect in the battery that was poorly addressed by manufacturers and regulators.

The National Transportation Safety Board's report divided blame for a pair of battery fire incidents in January 2013 that prompted a global grounding of the 787 Dreamliners. The planes were cleared to fly three months later when Boeing won approval for a battery fix.

Gloomily watching their money shrink in value, Venezuelans don't need government statistics to tell them what they already know: their country is facing the looming risk of hyperinflation.

Breaking its own regulations, the Venezuelan central bank has stopped publishing the official inflation rate, which stood at 63.4 percent at the end of August.

The World Bank said Tuesday that the fallout from the deadly Ebola pandemic will push Guinea and Sierra Leone into recession next year.

With the disease still not under control in West Africa, the cost to the two countries plus less-impacted Liberia of shuttered businesses and curtailed investment will run "well over" $2 billion in 2014-2015, the Bank said in a new report.