The world's longest tunnel officially opened on Wednesday, with the trailblazing rail passage under the Swiss Alps aiming to ease transit through the heart of Europe.

World oil markets have seen no negative impact from a doubling of Iranian exports following the lifting of international sanctions, the country's oil minister said Wednesday.

The market is returning to a "balanced state", Bijan Zanganeh said Wednesday before leaving for an OPEC oil cartel meeting in Vienna.

The head of the world's biggest bank by assets, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), is retiring, according to a statement, amid flat profit growth for the massive lender.

Oil prices dipped in Asia Wednesday despite official China data showing factory activity expanded in May, as traders treaded cautiously before an OPEC meeting in Vienna this week.

Crude prices have rebounded from their January lows of under $30 and last week briefly pushed past $50 a barrel for the first time this year as the market gained support from production outages in Canada and Nigeria.

South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries has received the green light for a near 3.0 billion restructuring programme -- including asset sales and job cuts -- to keep the world's largest shipbuilder afloat.

His Excellency Minister of Energy and Water Arthur Nazarian inaugurated Project Lebanon 2016, the 21st International Trade Exhibition for Construction Materials and Equipment for Lebanon and the Middle East, and Energy Lebanon 2016, the 6th International Trade Exhibition for Power, Electrical Engineering, Alternative Energy, Lighting, HVAC, Water and Environmental Technologies, in the presence of the ambassadors of the participating countries and a number of officials, diplomats, and dignitaries. The exhibition will continue from May 31 to June 3, 2016.

The leaders of 50 of Europe's mightiest companies, from Shell and BP to Heineken and BMW, warned Tuesday that Britain will be weaker if its people vote to break away from the European Union.

French firm Technip has signed a preliminary contract worth more than $500 million (557 million euros) to rebuild a major oil drilling platform off the coast of Libya, officials said Tuesday.

Unemployment in Germany fell to its lowest level since East and West Germany reunited after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as Europe's top economy continues to recover, data showed on Tuesday.

The unemployment rate -- which measures the jobless total against the working population as a whole -- fell to 6.1 percent in May from 6.2 percent in April, the federal labour office said in a statement.

Eurozone inflation remained in negative territory in May, the Eurostat statistics agency said Tuesday in a first estimate.

Consumer prices fell 0.1 percent in May after slipping 0.2 in April, the agency said.