Italy's private sector expansion continued in July as new business rose at the fastest rate year-to-date thanks to an uptrend in the service sector, S&P Global said Wednesday.
The S&P Global Italy Composite PMI Output Index stood at an eight-month high of 52.5 in July, up from 50.8 in June.
On the services side, the PMI was 52.5, compared with the previous 50.2 and the expected 51.
Thailand's headline consumer price index rose 1.95% in July from a year earlier, easing from a 2.42% increase in June, the country's Trade Policy and Strategy Office said in a Wednesday press conference.The reading came in below analysts' expectations for a 2.55% increase, according to Investing.com data.
New Zealand recorded NZ$16.1 billion of new lending in June, up 1.7% from May and over 7% higher compared with the same month a year earlier, according to data published Wednesday by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.Total monthly new residential lending increased to NZ$8.3 billion in June from NZ$8.2 billion in the previous month, but was down nearly 4% from the year-ago reading of NZ$8.7 billion.Total new business lending, excluding agriculture, was NZ$3.9 billion in June, up from NZ$3.4 billion in May and marking an increase of NZ$351 million from a year earlier.Meanwhile, agriculture new lending totaled NZ$3.1 billion in June, rising from NZ$2.5 billion in May and up by nearly 48% compared with a year ago, the data showed.New consumer lending increased by over 3% from the previous month and by nearly 11% from a year earlier to NZ$236 million in June.
The rise in unemployment in the June quarter in New Zealand was above market and central bank expectations and the highest reading since September 2015, Westpac said in a Wednesday note.The unemployment rate in the country rose 5.6% in the June quarter, up 0.2 percentage points from the March quarter and up 0.4 percentage points from the June quarter of 2025. The seasonally adjusted employment rate was about 67%, unchanged from the previous quarter.This followed an upward revision in the March quarter to 5.4%.The employment measures data was mixed and supports Westpac's expectation of soft growth in activity over the quarter, per the note.The data points to a stabilization rather than an accelerating in wage pressures, the bank said, noting that the distribution of pay increases was unchanged from last quarter. More employers are citing the cost of living as a reason for increasing pay rates, while fewer are citing the need to attract or retain workers, the lender added.