Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: Italy’s final August consumer price index came in at 3.3% year on year, matching the preliminary 3.3% reading, the national statistics office confirmed. The final figure leaves the headline inflation rate unchanged from the flash estimate published earlier in the month.

TREE NEWS update: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU and Canada will launch a flagship joint Arctic project, with cooperation spanning energy, critical minerals and batteries. The move will raise EU-Canada relations to their “highest” level, she said.

TREE NEWS update: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will call for a new alliance between the EU and Canada built on trade and security, in her State of the Union address Wednesday in Strasbourg. “We want to take our relationship with Canada as high as it can go,” she is set to say, adding that the two sides must “urgently reimagine” their partnerships and build global coalitions. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will attend and speak Thursday.

TREE NEWS update: China has led the drafting of two new international standards in graphene nanomanufacturing, both released in succession. The first, covering blank detail specifications for graphene oxide powder and dispersions, is the world’s first China-led international standard in the graphene oxide field. The second is the first international standard for measuring graphene layer distribution in chemical vapor deposition (CVD) graphene films using the optical contrast method.

TREE NEWS reports: Freight moving through the China-Laos Railway totaled 3.822 million tonnes in the first eight months of the year, with trade value reaching 23.38 billion yuan, up 1.6% and 31.5% year on year respectively, Kunming Customs said. Exports came to 11.24 billion yuan and imports 12.14 billion yuan, both up 31.5% from a year earlier.

TREE NEWS update: Beijing’s leadership group for education, science, technology and talent issued a plan to build Zhongguancun into a world-leading science park by 2030. Targets include R&D spending by enterprises at about 9.0% of value added, 110 world-class tech firms, 105 unicorns, 13.5 trillion yuan in park revenue and 8.1 trillion yuan from strategic emerging industries.

TREE NEWS update: Hunan province issued 30-year special-purpose local government bonds totaling 443 million yuan at a coupon of 2.2800%, with a bid-to-cover marginal ratio of 1.72 times against an expected 2.27 times. A separate 30-year tranche of 7.99 billion yuan was priced at 2.2700%, with a marginal ratio of 2.33 times against the same 2.27-times expectation.

TREE NEWS update: Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is set to launch its first bond index by the end of 2026, the bourse operator’s debut in fixed-income benchmarking. The plan covers a single index product, with no further details on methodology, underlying bonds or launch partners disclosed. The move would extend HKEX beyond equities and derivatives into bond market infrastructure.

TREE NEWS reports: Turkey’s benchmark BIST 100 index extended its decline to 3.2%, the main Istanbul equity gauge deepening its slide. The move marks an acceleration in losses for Turkish equities, with the index’s drop widening to that level.

TREE NEWS update: Airbus delivered the first aircraft assembled at its second China final assembly line in Tianjin on the 16th, an A320neo received by China Eastern Airlines. The European planemaker now operates 10 A320-family final assembly lines worldwide, two of them in China. Its first Chinese line opened in 2008 and the second entered production in 2025; more than 800 A320-family aircraft have been assembled and delivered in China to date.

TREE NEWS reports: Vietnam’s benchmark VN Index dropped 1.3% to close at 1,788.04 points. The decline marks a pullback for the index after its recent run. No further details on the drivers of the move were given.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Foreign Ministry said protectionism is undermining corporate confidence in investing in Europe, after a European telecom lobbying group warned that the EU’s revised Cybersecurity Act would force European telecom firms to spend an extra €40 billion on equipment replacement. Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on the 16th that China has noted the reports, and that earlier assessments put the law’s potential cost to the EU at over €360 billion over the next five years.

TREE NEWS update: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the Iran conflict has forced the EU to pay an additional €90 billion for fossil fuel imports. She also said single-market reforms must be completed by the end of 2027, that a package addressing banking fragmentation will be proposed, and that a new critical raw materials company will be created.

TREE NEWS reports: Zhang Yiming, the 43-year-old founder of ByteDance, has become Asia’s richest person for the first time, with a net worth surpassing $105 billion. His fortune now exceeds that of India’s Gautam Adani, and has grown roughly sevenfold from the $13 billion recorded when Bloomberg first tracked him in March 2019, as AI-related wealth surged past billionaires in traditional industries.

TREE NEWS update: Uzbekistan’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 14%, it said. The decision leaves the policy rate at its existing level, with no change announced to the standing rate. No further details on the reasoning behind the hold or the timing of the next policy meeting were provided.

TREE NEWS update: China Vanke Co. and its former board chairman Yu Liang were hit with a consumption restriction order, 2026. The order was issued by the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court in Hunan Province, business registry data provider Tianyancha showed. The restriction limits the named parties’ high-spending activities.

TREE NEWS update: Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, will attend the opening ceremony of the 23rd China-ASEAN Expo and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in Nanning, Guangxi, on September 17 and deliver a speech, the Foreign Ministry announced. Myanmar Vice President Nyo Saw, Vietnamese Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Tuc, Lao Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Saleumxay Kommasith and ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn will also attend.

TREE NEWS reports: Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 0.5%, pointing to a higher open for US technology stocks. The move in futures, which track the Nasdaq 100, signals early strength in tech-heavy equities ahead of the cash session.

TREE NEWS reports: China’s internet data services sector consumed more than 60 billion kWh of electricity this year, up over 40% year on year, the China Electricity Council said. The council described internet data and battery-swap and charging services as representative of a new type of digital-energy load that has seen explosive growth.

TREE NEWS reports: South Korea postponed a congressional briefing scheduled for Sept. 17 on the first project under its $350 billion US investment plan, Yonhap reported. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy asked two National Assembly committees to delay the closed-door session covering the project and its details. The delay could push back the signing of the related Korea-US agreement and the project’s announcement, originally expected as early as Sept. 18. The two sides remain at odds over Korea’s participation in the Alaska LNG project and profit-sharing through an umbrella investment special purpose company.