Bloomberg Australia’s economy expanded at the fastest annual pace in four years, driven by a surge in public investment to build roads and railways and continued strength in resource exports. Gross domestic product rose 0.5% in the second quarter from the previous three months, when it grew by a downward revised 1%; economists estimated 0.6% gain. The economy expanded ...

  Bloomberg Government employees playing badminton in a Tianjin office lobby in the middle of the afternoon. Hundreds of miles away in the northern city of Tieling, workers manually cut rubber truck parts in a tiny family workshop that makes about $600 a month. They’re different examples of the same inefficiency hampering China’s rebalancing toward a consumption-led economy and weighing ...

  Bloomberg Singapore is next in line if London loses its status as leading business hub in the world. The Asian island nation ranks behind London as the best global city, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said in a new study, based on social and economic data published before the U.K. voted to leave the European Union. The Cities of Opportunity Index places ...

  Bloomberg Palm oil inventories in Malaysia probably fell to the lowest since 2011 as demand for the vegetable oil used in everything from instant noodles to detergents surged in countries including India and China. Inventories fell 7.9 percent to 1.63 million metric tons in August from a month earlier, the lowest since March 2011, according to the median of ...

  Bloomberg China’s Finance Ministry has submitted a consumer tax overhaul proposal to the State Council, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The proposal is subject to change after other ministries and the State Council, China’s cabinet, give their input, one of the people said. Finance Ministry ...

  Ho Chi Minh City / AFP Recent Vietnamese graduate looking for an English-language teacher? There’s an app for that. Or hunting the best bowl of pho in your Hanoi neighbourhood? There’s now an app for that, too. A decade ago such technology would likely have been developed in California’s Silicon Valley. But today those apps are being churned out ...

  San Francisco / AFP South Korean consumer electronics titan LG unveiled a flagship V20 smartphone aimed at internet age “storytellers” on the eve of an Apple event expected to star a new iPhone. LG introduced the V20 in San Francisco, highlighting camera and audio capabilities aimed at bringing professional-level production quality to even casual of moments captured on smartphones. ...

  Madrid / AFP Spain’s Telefonica plans to create a platform for its clients to manage access to their personal data and possibly even block online giants like Google from using the information or make them pay, a spokesman said. The platform, which the telecoms giant plans to roll out next year, would lay out all the data that it ...

  Relaxnews One product flying high in the consumer tech market this fall is the drone, whether mini-drones for leisure flyers or veritable winged racers. A host of new products are due out from September 2016, ahead of the imminent unveiling of GoPro’s first model. Parrot has been busy releasing a selection of drones for fall 2016, with two new ...

  Ouagadougou / AFP With the logo of his internet TV station on his black T-shirt, Inoussa Maiga energetically plucks corn stalks in northern Burkina Faso for a programme on farming in Africa. Maiga, 30, launched Agribusiness TV in May in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou, determined to change poor opinions about agricultural work held by African youth and to help ...