China submitted a revised request for dispute settlement consultations with the United States to address new U.S. tariffs applied on goods originating in China, the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The Trump administration's latest tariff hike on Chinese imports has heightened fears of a renewed trade war between the U.S. and China, the world's two largest economies. China's revised request comes after an extra 10% duty on Chinese goods took effect Tuesday, adding to the 10% tariff imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on February 4.

Malaysia’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged as expected, citing a balanced outlook on growth and inflation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank Negara Malaysia on Thursday maintained its overnight policy rate at 3.00%, where it has been since May 2023. “At the current OPR level, the monetary policy stance remains supportive of the economy and is consistent with the current assessment of inflation and growth prospects,” Bank Negara said.

Turkey lowered its benchmark one-week repo rate from 45% to 42.5% on Thursday, EuroNews.com reported. The decision came after official data showed annual inflation dipping below 40% for the first time in nearly two years. In a statement released after the committee meeting, the bank said it would review inflation trends and adjust rates cautiously in upcoming policy meetings. “While inflation expectations and pricing behaviour tend to improve, they continue to pose risks to the disinflation process,” the bank said.

South Korea’s headline inflation eased in February, providing room for the central bank to loosen monetary policy further to support the slowing economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The benchmark consumer-price index rose 2.0% from a year earlier, following a 2.2% increase in January, the country’s statistics office said Thursday. The slowdown in price growth was largely driven by stabilizing prices of some agricultural products as well as lower services prices, according to the statistics office.

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has introduced a proposal aimed at significantly lowering the tax rate on crypto gains from the current maximum of 55% to 20%, CoinMarketCap.com reported. This proposal seeks to classify cryptocurrencies as a new asset class under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, thereby aligning the tax treatment of crypto with that of traditional securities. Currently, Japan categorizes crypto gains as miscellaneous income, subjecting investors to a steep tax burden.

Spurring reluctant Chinese consumers to spend has been elevated to the top of Beijing's to-do list for 2025, leap-frogging technology and industrial production, as lawmakers look to rectify imbalances in the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. Chinese Premier Li Qiang's report on Wednesday to the annual meeting of the country's parliament on major tasks for 2025 promised a "special action plan" for vigorously boosting consumption and stimulating domestic demand as the country set a roughly 5% growth target for 2025.

Australia’s economy grew at a faster pace in the fourth quarter of 2024, shrugging off the threat of a recession just as the global outlook has dimmed amid a rapidly escalating trade war led by the U.S., and a sharp rise in geopolitical risks, the Wall Street Journal reported. The economy grew 0.6% sequentially in the December quarter, and by 1.3% from a year earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. The economy had clocked an annual growth rate of 0.8% in the prior quarter.