For the second year in a row, Bader has announced the launch of its Startup Cup Business Competition, a worldwide program started by Kauffman Foundation and adopted by Bader in its Lebanese version, with the support of Bank Audi, a press release said on Wednesday.

The Bader Startup Cup is a locally driven business model competition that serves as an ideal platform for entrepreneurs to launch their ideas into the marketplace.

Major U.S. companies are pushing back against an effort to reform the global taxation system to prevent multinational businesses from exploiting differing national tax rules and loopholes.

The influential Business Roundtable, a gathering of top U.S. chief executives, said in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew that the project to close gaps in taxation of cross-border income threatens their businesses and U.S. workers.

Greece is hoping for a new tourism record this year, with arrivals likely to exceed 20 million, in a new sign that the country is winning back foreigners as the economy gets back on its feet.

After a poor season in 2012 -- a year marked by back-to-back elections, political instability, and anti-austerity protests -- the tourism industry seems finally to be getting its swagger back.

The Bank of England is likely to keep its main interest rate at a record-low level on Thursday, but is slowly moving towards raising borrowing costs after a years-long pause.

The institution's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is odds-on to keep the rate frozen at 0.50 percent at the conclusion of a two-day meeting as low inflation in Britain offsets the country's solid economic growth and falling unemployment, according to analysts.

Oil prices edged higher in Asia Wednesday as investors await the latest U.S. supply report for clues about demand in the world's biggest crude consumer. 

The U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in July, gained 14 cents to $102.80 a barrel while Brent North Sea crude for July was up seven cents to stand at $108.89 in afternoon trade. 

China's manufacturing activity improved in May but the world's second-largest economy faces headwinds, particularly in the property sector, HSBC said Tuesday.

The HSBC final purchasing managers' index (PMI), which tracks activity in the nation's factories and workshops, came in at 49.4 in May, lower than a preliminary reading of 49.7, the British-based banking giant said in a statement.

Inflation in the eurozone sagged to an annual rate of 0.5 percent in May, adding pressure on the European Central Bank to take action to support a weak recovery and ward off the danger of a drop in consumer prices.

The figure released Tuesday by the European Union's statistics agency fell from 0.7 percent in April and was short of market analysts' forecasts for 0.6 percent. The overall figure was dragged down by an unexpectedly low 0.9 percent rate in Germany, the biggest of the 18 countries that use the euro.

Australia's central bank on Tuesday left interest rates on hold at a record low 2.5 percent as it sounded a cautiously optimistic note on the economy's transition away from mining-led growth.

The Reserve Bank continued to flag a period of unchanged rates in a statement that balanced a more positive outlook for the labour market and for firms' spending plans with a warning that a sharp fall-off in mining investment was still to come.

India's hawkish central bank kept key interest rates unchanged Tuesday at its first meeting to set monetary policy since new pro-growth Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office.

After meeting in the financial capital Mumbai, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said the benchmark repo rate, at which it lends to commercial banks, would remain steady at 8.0 percent.

Inflation in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, it set to slow in May, data showed on Monday, turning up the pressure on the European Central Bank to act and avert deflation, analysts said.

According to closely watched state regional data published so far, German inflation looks set to have slowed in May from the 1.3 percent recorded in April.