South Korea and Australia signed a free trade deal Tuesday which will scrap almost all tariffs within a decade while immediately lifting levies on some key exports, including South Korean cars and Australian wine.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said there was "huge untapped potential" in trade between the two countries as the deal was signed, wrapping up four years of negotiations.

Oil prices rose in Asian trade Tuesday on renewed fears about Ukraine after pro-Russian protesters seized government buildings in the eastern city of Donetsk.

New York's main contract West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for May delivery rose 51 cents to $100.95 a barrel in afternoon trade and Brent North Sea crude for May gained 26 cents to $106.08.

The Bank of Japan on Tuesday painted an upbeat picture of the world's number three economy and stood pat on its monetary easing program as it assesses the impact of a controversial sales tax rise.

Policymakers decided to hold fire on the multi-billion-dollar asset-purchase scheme introduced in April last year as part of a drive by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to drag the country out of years of deflation and slumbering growth.

Bank of Cyprus said Monday it is looking "positively" at a revised offer to sell its loss-making PJSC Ukrainian unit to Russia's Alfa Group as part of a restructuring drive.

In January, BoC, the island's largest lender, said it had agreed to sell its 99.77 percent stake in the subsidiary to ABH Ukraine, which is part of Alfa Group, for 225 million euros ($308 million).

Italy's public deficit inched down to 2.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2013 -- 0.1 of a point lower than in 2012 and staying below the EU threshold of 3.0 percent, official data showed on Monday.

The data came a day before Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is to adopt on Tuesday an economic program setting out economic growth and debt and deficit reduction targets for the next three years.

Nigeria on Sunday became Africa's biggest economy, leap-frogging South Africa, after the government announced a long-overdue rebasing of the country's gross domestic product.

The new calculations take into account changes in production and consumption since the last time the exercise was carried out in 1990, including an added focus on communications and the movie industry.

The World Bank said Monday developing countries in East Asia will grow 7.1 percent in 2014 as they benefit from a stabilizing global economy and withstand the impact of U.S. stimulus cuts.

The estimate for gross domestic product (GDP) expansion remains unchanged from last year, making East Asia the world's fastest-growing region, the bank said in its East Asia and Pacific Economic Update report.

Japan and Australia are set to announce a free trade deal at a summit of the nations' leaders later Monday, reports said, after similar talks with the U.S. ran into trouble.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and visiting Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott were to announce a basic agreement on the long-awaited trade pact which follows years of talks, major Japanese newspapers including the top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

Ukraine on Saturday said it rejected Russia's latest gas price hike and threatened to take its neighbor to arbitration court over a dispute that could imperil deliveries to Western Europe.

Prime Minister Asreniy Yatsenyuk said Russia's two rate increases in three days were a form of "economic aggression" aimed at punishing Ukraine's new leaders for overthrowing a Moscow-backed regime last month.

Southeast Asian finance ministers are "vigilant" in the face of economic risks such as reduced U.S. monetary stimulus, Myanmar said Saturday at a meeting that underscored its return to the international diplomatic stage.

Officials said the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was well-placed to withstand the impact of the U.S. Federal Reserve's "tapering" of its liquidity-boosting quantitative easing program.