India’s Modi calls for global approach to tackle crypto; FTSE 100 at two-year high – as it happened

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Latest Modi urges global effort on crypto
• Fauci: disinformation hampering Covid-19 battle
• Moderna: Could have combined flu/Covid vaccine by fall 2023
• China's Xi warns of spillovers if inflation leads central banks to tighten policy
• Xi: Must end Cold War mentality'
• China economy slows... prompting rate cut
• FTSE 100 highest since January 2020

Back in China, new government data has shown its property market slump persisted in December -- helping to spur the People's Bank of China into today's interest rate cut.

The downturn spanned developers' sales, investments, land purchasing and financing activities, according to Bloomberg calculations based on full-year government figures released today.

The woes in December were particularly acute in property investment, which shrank 17% from November and 14% from a year earlier. Such spending directly contributed 13% of gross domestic product last year.

Home sales by value declined 19.6% from a year earlier, a sixth consecutive monthly drop, a signal that investors shouldn't be cheered by figures released Saturday that showed a narrowing decline in new-home prices.