Russia on Friday officially launched its own rating agency as it seeks to counterbalance the influence of Western agencies which have taken a pessimistic line on the country's crisis-hit economy. 

"Upon completion of the state registration of a legal entity, Analytical Credit Rating Agency (ACRA) starts its operating activities," an official statement said.

Pakistan's central bank said Friday that it expects an economic boost as the security situation improves, voicing confidence days ahead of the one-year anniversary of the country's deadliest ever extremist attack.

The statement came in the bank's annual report reviewing the country's economic performance for the fiscal year that ended in June 2015.

Consumer prices in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, rose modestly in November, driven by higher costs for food, services and rents, official data showed on Friday.

Confirming a preliminary flash estimate released at the end of last month, the federal statistics office Destatis calculated that Germany's national inflation yardstick, the consumer price index, inched 0.4 percent higher in November, after edging up 0.3 percent in October. 

The International Monetary Fund has been accused of giving in to political pressure in dropping a long established rule on prudential lending on Tuesday so that it can proceed with assistance for Ukraine.

That follows similar charges that the fund, the world's essential backstop in financial crises, bent its rules to support a bailout of Greece, and most recently to admit China's renminbi (or yuan) currency into the IMF's basket of elite reserve currencies.

More than four years into a grinding civil war, the Syrian government is scraping the barrel to boost its revenues with everything from taxes on shawarma sandwiches to telephone lines.

The country's economy has been ravaged by the conflict that began in March 2011, which has claimed the lives of over 250,000 people and pushed over four million to become refugees.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will look to seal a deal on building India's first bullet train after he arrived in New Delhi Friday for talks with counterpart and conservative soulmate Narendra Modi.

New Delhi and Tokyo are seeking to take advantage of a warm relationship between the two premiers that has only deepened, partly to counter China's growing rise, since Modi came to power last year.

Oil tumbled to fresh multi-year lows in Asia Friday after OPEC said output had surged, exacerbating concerns over a supply glut that is expected to persist beyond next year.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries reported its collective production rose by 230,100 barrels a day in November to 31.7 million, the highest in three and a half years and beyond its 30 million ceiling target.

An upscale Russian store chain apologized on Thursday for selling chopping boards with an image of U.S. President Barack Obama as a monkey, after the U.S. embassy reacted furiously.

The product features a family of monkeys, with an image of Obama's face superimposed onto that of the smallest primate.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gold has been exported from Israel to North Korea despite a U.N. ban, an Israeli parliamentary committee said Thursday.

The Knesset's economics committee said it would tighten restrictions on trade with the authoritarian state after learning that $400,000 of gold was exported after a 2006 U.N. ban.

The aviation industry is set to post a second consecutive year of net profits in 2015, nearly doubling them to $33 billion (30.1 billion) thanks to low fuel prices, its trade association said Thursday.

"Our outlook for this year has improved to a 33 billion U.S. dollars net profit," said Tony Tyler, head of the International Air Transport Association.