An index of China's manufacturing activity fell to a 12-month low in April, HSBC said Thursday, indicating further weakness as growth sputters in the world's second-largest economy.

The first foreign bank to operate in Myanmar for decades officially opened the doors of its Yangon branch Wednesday, the latest government bid to attract  foreign investment in the emergent nation.

Myanmar's quasi-civilian administration, which replaced a military regime in 2011, is trying to modernize the country's creaking banking system to increase capital flows to local businesses and spur foreign investment, particularly in the nascent special economic zones.

Kazakhstan will not accept a single currency in a trade bloc championed by Moscow, a top official said on Wednesday, rejecting a proposal from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader has called for a common currency to be created in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a four-country trade grouping consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Chinese technology giants Alibaba and Tencent are promising to build the cars of the future, vehicles linked seamlessly to the Internet and offering shopping and navigation help while on the road. 

E-commerce company Alibaba and WeChat messaging app provider Tencent have both announced plans for cars in the past month, along with video streaming platform Letv.

Australian consumer prices rose 0.2 percent in the three months to March, data showed Wednesday, with the annual headline inflation rate softening to give the central bank room to cut interest rates.

The slight rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the first-quarter of 2015 took the annual rate of inflation to 1.3 percent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics -- in line with analysts' expectations.

Argentina easily raised $500 million in a debt issue Tuesday that challenged efforts by hedge funds to force the country to pay off bonds they hold.

Buenos Aires announced the new issue late Monday of nine-year BONAR bonds at 8.75 percent interest rate under local law.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that the Russian economy likely shrank by two percent in the first three months of the year due to sanctions pressure and low oil prices.

That would be the first quarterly contraction since 2009 if confirmed, and Medvedev warned lawmakers the situation could worsen further still, in contrast to President Vladimir Putin saying last week that the worst of the economic crisis had passed.

Bank of Cyprus CEO John Patrick Hourican announced Tuesday he will step down in the summer less than two years into a major restructuring of the island's troubled largest lender.

The former Royal Bank of Scotland senior executive -- who joined BoC in October 2013 –- is stepping down for personal reasons but is contractually obliged to stay on for another four months, a BoC statement said.

Airbus Helicopters has won a tender to replace Poland's Soviet-era military choppers, beating out British-Italian group AgustaWestland and U.S. manufacturer Sikorsky, local media reported Tuesday.

Airbus, formerly Eurocopter, has won the tender to deliver 70 multipurpose Caracal EC725 helicopters to Poland's army under a contract worth an estimated 2.5 billion euros ($3 billion), according to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. 

Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse said Tuesday a strong performance by its private banking unit helped first quarter net profit rise by 23 percent to 1.05 billion Swiss francs (1.02 billion euros, $1.1 billion), outstripping forecasts by analysts.

Its investment bank posted a 14 percent rise in pre-tax profits to 945 million francs.