Indonesia's economy grew at its slowest pace in four years in 2013 because of a slump in commodity prices and a slowdown in consumer spending.

The Central Statistics Agency said Southeast Asia's largest economy grew 5.8 percent last year, the first time it has expanded less than 6 percent since 2009.

Sony is in talks to sell its personal computer business to a Japanese investment fund as part of the electronics giant's wider restructuring, reports said Wednesday.

The leading Nikkei business daily said Sony was looking to sell the division to Japan Industrial Partners for between 40 billion yen and 50 billion yen ($396 million to $495 million).

Romania and the IMF reached an agreement on sustaining a stand-by credit deal, threatened by a row over a fuel tax rise, an IMF official said on Tuesday.

"Staff level agreement has been reached, the program remains broadly on track," IMF mission chief Andrea Schaechter told a press conference.

Spanish government figures show that the number of people registered as unemployed rose by 113,097 in January as temporary job contracts created over Christmas came to an end.

The Labor Ministry said Tuesday that the reduction put the total number of those registered in unemployment offices at 4.81 million. Year-on-year, the figure was down 166,343.

Banks in recession-hit Cyprus, reeling from a financial crisis, are struggling with non-performing loans that make up nearly half their lending and are hampering efforts to finance a cash-starved economy.

The central bank says banks' liquidity is sufficient to absorb NPLs up to a certain point, but fast action is needed as the figure is rising.

Australia's central bank held its cash rate steady at a record low of 2.50 percent Tuesday and hinted at a prolonged pause, saying a period of interest rate stability was prudent as the mining boom unwinds.

Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) governor Glenn Stevens said the board had decided to leave interest rates on hold for a fifth consecutive month, as expected by analysts.

Online advertising spending totaled $300 million in the MENA region today, and is increasing at a 37% growth rate a year to reach an astounding $1B in 2017.

“Online advertising is an essential driver for the growth of Arab web and mobile businesses. With the increase of ad budgets, the entire digital sector will flourish,” stated Omar Christidis, CEO and founder of ArabNet.

After dragging Spain's financial sector to the brink of disaster, Bankia reported Monday a resounding return to profit in 2013 and said it had finished a painful restructuring two years early.

Bankia, saved from bankruptcy in 2012 with an injection of 18 billion euros ($24 billion) in eurozone rescue loans, reported a net profit of 509 million euros in 2013, after a catastrophic 19.2-billion-euro loss the previous year.

Belgian biotechnology company Ablynx said on Monday it has signed a cancer research cooperation accord with U.S. pharmaceuticals giant Merck & Co. which could be worth up to 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion).

The contract, to identify proteins which may lead to cancer immunotherapy treatments, involves an initial payment of 20 million euros plus 10.7 million euros for the three-year research program.

Britain's state-rescued bank Lloyds said Monday it will take an extra hit of almost £2.0 ($3.3 billion, 2.4 billion euros) to cover mis-selling claims, but expected to make a "small" annual profit.

Lloyds, which is 33-percent owned by the taxpayer, added it would seek to resume shareholder dividend payments in the second half of this year, while the lender was preparing for the government to sell more of its stake.