The annual inflation rate in retail prices in India rose to 4.82 percent last August, compared to 4.45 percent during the previous July, driven by rising food and fuel prices. Which increases the possibility of raising interest rates next October.
The August reading slightly exceeded the 4.80 percent rate expected by economists in a Reuters poll, marking inflation for the third month in a row above the Reserve Bank’s medium-term target level of 4 percent.
The Central Bank had kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5.25 percent last month, but the minutes of the last monetary policy meeting showed that some bank officials, including Governor Sanjay Malhotra, supported raising interest rates if inflation spreads to other sectors, according to Reuters.
Concerns about raising interest rates increased over the past month. The continuing rise in global oil prices threatens to increase inflationary pressures, with Brent crude futures prices approaching $108 per barrel.
India imports about 85 percent of its oil needs, and more than half of this amount comes from the Middle East, where tensions between the United States and Iran have caused major supply disruptions.
However, Asia's third-largest economy remains an outlier compared to other regional countries, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, which have raised interest rates in response to rising energy prices and currency fluctuations.
Food inflation in India rose to 5.95 percent in August, compared to 5.52 percent in July. As a result of weak monsoon rains, this led to sharp increases in the prices of essential commodities such as ginger, onions and garlic.
The inflation rate in the transportation sector also accelerated to 4.60 percent during August, up from 4.43 percent during the previous month.
Saudi Arabia has revealed the features of a new phase to enhance the attractiveness of its financial and investment environment, with “Vision 2030” entering its third phase, which focuses on maximizing the impact of reforms and building on the gains achieved, in a way that supports the efficiency of markets, enables the private sector to expand and compete, and enhances the Kingdom’s ability to attract capital and expand investment opportunities.
This was revealed by the Minister of Finance and Head of the Financial Sector Development Programme, Mohammed bin Abdullah Al-Jadaan, during his opening speech at the second edition of the “Money 20/20 Middle East” conference, stressing that the meeting of financial sector leaders, investors and innovators in Riyadh reflects the Kingdom’s attractive financial and investment environment, and the ability it has achieved to deal with changes with confidence and flexibility.
Al-Jadaan pointed out that the entry of “Vision 2030” into its third phase, which focuses on maximizing impact and building on gains, reinforces this trend and raises the ceiling of ambition for the next phase. This supports the efficiency of markets, enables the private sector to grow and compete, and enhances the Kingdom’s ability to attract capital and expand investment opportunities.
Al-Jadaan stated that his country worked to develop the financial sector within a broader path to raise the competitiveness of the economy and diversify its base, and the vision through sector regulators created a more flexible legislative and regulatory environment, expanded financing and investment channels, strengthened the digital infrastructure, and opened the way for new business models and financial technologies, which are capabilities that strengthened the system’s ability to deal with current changes and continue to support the economy efficiently, indicating at the same time that his country moved to a more sustainable financial market to take advantage of new growth opportunities.
He explained that the financial sector development program has contributed, throughout its journey, to establishing a deeper, more diversified and more prepared financial environment. By developing legislative and regulatory frameworks, deepening markets, expanding financing and investment options, and preparing the financial infrastructure to accommodate modern technologies and innovative business models.
The Minister of Finance stated that the development achieved by the financial sector comes as an extension of the transformation process launched by “Vision 2030”, and the capabilities and reforms it created that contributed to raising the efficiency of markets, expanding the scope of investment and innovation, and consolidating the role of the financial sector as one of the main enablers of economic growth.
He stressed that the sector's ability to support growth is linked to its ability to deal with changes efficiently and maintain confidence and stability, pointing to the flexibility that the Saudi financial sector has shown in light of recent economic and geopolitical developments, based on well-established regulatory and institutional frameworks, and solid levels of capital and liquidity.
It is noteworthy that the Money 20/20 Middle East conference is organized by Tahaluf and will be held from September 14 to 16, 2026 at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center in Malham, with the participation of more than 38,000 visitors and 350 speakers, along with 600 investors and 150 emerging companies from the financial and technology ecosystem locally and internationally.
The Chinese state-backed Global Times newspaper attacked calls made by Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, to slow the development of advanced artificial intelligence models, saying that the proposal is not limited to safety concerns, but rather reflects an American attempt to contain China technologically.
The newspaper said in its editorial that Amodei’s proposal may appear on its face to be a rational call for managing the risks of artificial intelligence, but in practice it represents a “Cold War approach” targeting Beijing.
Amodei had proposed a framework that would allow the pace of development of the capabilities of more advanced models to be slowed down to allow more time to address escalating safety risks. His call was supported by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and president of XAI. Amodei also called on the United States to tighten restrictions on the export of advanced chips to China, and to address what he described as “model distillation” processes in which artificial intelligence laboratories use the outputs of larger, more sophisticated models to train smaller, less expensive models.
Amodei later said that the biggest dilemma for any attempt to slow the development of artificial intelligence is the possibility that China or other competing countries will not move in the same direction.
The Global Times responded that the actual goal of this proposal is to curb the development of artificial intelligence in China through technological barriers and regulatory monopolies, consolidate American hegemony over advanced technology, and exclude Beijing from the global governance system for artificial intelligence.
The newspaper described this approach as a “silent cold war in artificial intelligence,” describing it as “hypocritical and short-sighted.” She added that excluding China from the global innovation system may raise the cost of experiments and increase the risk of losing control over technology development.
This controversy comes at a time when warnings are increasing within the United States about the dangers of advanced artificial intelligence. American lawmakers called for setting new rules to regulate these systems after warnings from researchers at Anthropic that the acceleration of their capabilities could lead to catastrophic results if they exceed the ability of humans and governments to control them.
On the other hand, US President Donald Trump reduced calls to slow down the development of artificial intelligence, considering that there are those who exaggerate the risks. He said that the United States is ahead of China in this field, and that maintaining that lead represents a strategic priority, adding that “whoever wins the artificial intelligence race wins in the end.” These statements reveal a division within the United States between those who demand a slowdown in development due to safety risks, and those who believe that any slowdown may give China an opportunity to reduce the technological gap.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs entered the controversy, calling on all parties to adopt an “open, comprehensive and constructive” approach towards artificial intelligence. Ministry spokesman Gu Jiaqun said that raising concerns and engaging in confrontation and “malicious” competition will only hinder global governance of artificial intelligence and will not be in the interest of any party.
The statements come before anticipated talks between the United States and China regarding the safety risks of advanced artificial intelligence models, amid expectations that the issue will also be present at the expected summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Thus, the American-Chinese competition in artificial intelligence moves to a new stage. After the dispute focused on chips, export controls, and advanced computing, it extended to the safety rules themselves, and who has the right to determine the pace of technology development and its global governance mechanisms.
