Australia has swiftly turned down China's offer to "join hands" against Donald Trump's tariffs, as Washington escalates its trade war with Beijing, BBC.com reported. The White House recently imposed an import tax of 10% on Australian goods, but for China - Australia's biggest trading partner - raised tariffs to 125%. China's ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian argued joint resistance is "the only way" to stop the "hegemonic and bullying behaviour of the US", appealing for Canberra's cooperation in an opinion piece on Thursday.

Australia's central bank on Tuesday left its cash rate steady as widely expected but took a small step towards further easing in a policy meeting dominated by risks of a global trade war, Reuters reported. Wrapping up its April policy meeting, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) held interest rates steady at 4.1%, having just cut them by a quarter point in February for the first time in over four years. "Monetary policy is well placed to respond to international developments if they were to have material implications for Australian activity and inflation," the board said in a statement.

Australian retail sales rose modestly for a second straight month in February as a long-awaited cut in interest rates combined with slower inflation to boost consumer sentiment and spending power, Reuters reported. However, the recovery in consumer spending is still tepid, suggesting consumers remain cautious and would not be a bar to more policy easing. The Australian dollar was steady at $0.6241 and three-year bond futures were little changed at 96.31.

The Australian-based Village Roadshow Group is not impacted by the US-based Village Roadshow Entertainment Group’s (VREG) bankruptcy filing and has set plans to terminate its association with the company, Deadline.com reported. Village Roadshow Group released a statement this morning following news of bankruptcy at Village Roadshow Entertainment Group. VREG is an entirely separate operation from Village Roadshow Group, which was formed in 1954 and includes Village Roadshow Theme Parks, Roadshow Distributors, Roadshow Productions, Village Roadshow Studios, and Village Cinemas.

A liquidator is investigating whether a failed international student agency improperly transferred funds out of Australia in the weeks before its collapse, ABC.net reported. GrowPro Experience, a Spain-based company which helps arrange global study for international students, was put into administration earlier this year. Its collapse has left hundreds of students at risk of losing years of savings and the opportunity to study in overseas destinations, including Australia. Liquidation firm Taylor Insolvency has been appointed to wind up the Australian arm of the business.

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.

A steelworks project owned by tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has been ordered into administration by the South Australian government after his GFG Alliance failed to pay royalties, Bloomberg News reported. The South Australian government “has been in receipt of advice from our steel taskforce that the owner of the steelworks’ financial position wasn’t just deteriorating, it was likely to continue deteriorating,” the state’s premier, Peter Malinauskas, told reporters in Adelaide on Wednesday.