The deal would be a major boost for both sides and strengthen economic ties between the giants before the arrival of US president-elect Joe Biden in the White House in January.

The British parliament will have to ratify later this week the deal to cushion the economic shock of the divorce.

The US$900 billion stimulus package aimed at bolstering the United States economy during the coronavirus pandemic was signed into law by President Donald Trump on Sunday.

All three major US stock indices finished at all-time highs, a feat reached earlier in the day by Germany's DAX index.

Although Indonesia’s 10-year government bond yield has fallen from its highest level in March, the country still offers a competitive yield of 4.4 percent, the second highest after that of South Africa.

The year was a challenge like few others for the US$21.3 trillion mutual fund and $4.4 trillion ETF industry.

The adoption of education technology tools has more than tripled in Southeast Asia during the pandemic.

Most of the planet has spent at least part of 2020 in lockdown, and as Western consumers clicked through Google and Facebook, hundreds of millions of Chinese users turned to Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent or Xiaomi.

Indonesia's heavy equipment association reported recently that the industry, which last year operated at only 60 percent of capacity, would end up this year with an average of just 30 percent of capacity.

The government hopes to use the destinations, which were unveiled last year, to grow Indonesian tourism, especially after worldwide pandemic travel restrictions and income uncertainty devastated the sector.

Chinese regulators and Communist Party officials have set about reining in Ma’s sprawling financial empire after he publicly criticized the country’s regulatory system in October for stifling innovation.

The transition period, under which Britain stayed aligned to the EU’s trading and regulatory rules, ends at 2300 GMT on Dec. 31.

Unemployment benefits being paid out to about 14 million people through pandemic programs lapsed on Saturday, but will be restarted now that Trump has signed the bill.

The Hanoi-based General Statistics Office (GSO) said in a statement Sunday that growth for the final quarter was 4.48 percent, contributing to the year-end figure of 2.91 percent.

US President Donald Trump on Sunday signed the massive bill he had previously refused to approve after tweeting that he had "good news" to come.

Australia's rock lobster exports are worth half a billion US dollars a year -- and in normal times, 94 percent of them go to China.

In order to improve the economic situation, the government has also launched social protection programs to boost people’s purchasing power. Airlangga explained the government had allocated Rp 48.8 trillion to assist the small enterprise sector in 2021.

The bourse recorded a foreign net sell of Rp 47.74 trillion as of Dec. 23.

Britain formally left the EU in January after a divisive referendum in 2016, the first country to split from the political and economic project that was born as the continent rebuilt in the aftermath of World War II.

The survey, which was conducted in five cities, including Jakarta found that 52 percent of respondents planned to cut their spending during Christmas and New Year holidays.

The government has spent nearly half of the Rp 96.17 trillion (US$6.7 billion) healthcare budget allocated in the coronavirus stimulus as patients overwhelm hospitals and people struggle to get tested.

Since the pandemic broke out in the country earlier this year and forced people to study and from home, ‘Aisyiyah has not been able to carry out face-to-face learning for SWA.

P2P lending platform KoinWorks COO Bernard Arifin said that while the company had experienced a decline in loan requests during the first large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) period from March to July, it had enjoyed an increase in loan requests nearing the end of the year.

Since announcing the 2050 target in November, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's government has pledged to spend $20 billion on green tech and set ambitious new wind power targets.

The outlook for Asian companies in the next six months tracked by the Thomson Reuters/INSEAD Asian Business Sentiment Index jumped to 62 this quarter from 53 in the third quarter.

Britain will complete its departure from the EU on Dec. 31 when its current free trade arrangements expire. The two sides have been struggling for months to define a new relationship covering everything from trade to transport and energy.

Energy demand has plummeted to historic lows as local administrations enacted partial lockdown to contain the pandemic. All but several industries, such as food, finance and medicine, were forced to shut down.

The COVID-19 pandemic that has taken hold since early this year has depressed all economic sector performances, including the heavy equipment sector. The sales performance of heavy equipment in 2020 is expected to be the worst in the last seven years.

After around eight years of negotiations, Indonesia signed on Nov. 15 the world’s largest trade deal with the other nine ASEAN country members, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. The partnership represents almost one-third of the global economy.  

The government has further downgraded this year’s economic growth forecast amid the rise in COVID-19 cases ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays, as well as tighter restrictions that will impact consumption.