British group Micro Focus will merge with some of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's software assets, the pair said, in a further consolidation of the global tech sector after SoftBank's blockbuster purchase of ARM Holdings.

The EU will not allow Britain to cling to advantages for its financial industry while blocking free movement of labor in the wake of Brexit, commissioner Valdis Dombrovsksis warned on Thursday.

"We cannot tolerate cherry-picking," the Brussels financial services chief told German business daily Handelsblatt.

Mexico's finance minister Luis Videgaray resigned Wednesday following Donald Trump's controversial visit to the country, with the US Republican presidential candidate boasting it showed his trip had been a success.

"I let them know where the United States stands," Trump said during a televised forum with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

German auto giant Volkswagen and China's Anhui Jianghuai Automobile are in talks to build electric cars together, the firms announced Wednesday, the latest possible tie-up in a burgeoning Chinese market for clean-energy vehicles.

Australia's economy is growing at its fastest annual rate in four years, the government said Wednesday, as it trumpeted a quarter of a century of continued expansion.

Growth hit 3.3 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter of 2016, with government spending helping to offset falling trade as the economy shifts away from a decades-long resources-led boom.

Oil wobbled Tuesday as traders mulled a pledge from Russia and Saudi Arabia to address the chronic supply glut that has hammered the market in recent years.

Vietnam airlines bought 40 jets worth $6.5 billion from France's Airbus Tuesday, as President Francois Hollande visited the communist nation to drum up business with one of Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economies. 

Iran's oil minister said Tuesday that the Islamic republic supports "any decision" to stabilise the global oil market and that $50-60 per barrel is the desired price for most OPEC members.

The world's two biggest oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia said Monday they had agreed to "act together" to stabilize oil prices as they seek to steady the markets.

"The ministers noted the particular importance of constructive dialogue and close cooperation between the largest oil-producing countries with the goal of supporting the stability of the oil market and ensuring a stable level of investment in the long term," the energy ministers from the two sides said.

The slowdown in Islamic finance growth is likely to continue through 2017 due to low oil prices and lack of regulation, Standard and Poor's Global Ratings said Monday.

The asset growth of Islamic banks fell to seven percent last year from 12 percent in 2014 when oil prices began to decline, the ratings agency said in a report.