World economy LIVE Updates | UK inflation slows in December but is still at high levels

Annual inflation in Britain slowed to 10.5 per cent in December, official data showed Wednesday. But it still remained close to historically high levels which has led to a cost-of-living crisis. People from across fields have been holding mass strikes to demand better pay.

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rate compared with 10.7 per cent in November, the Office for National Statistics said in statement.

Gold prices inched lower on Wednesday as the US dollar firmed, while expectations of a slowdown in the pace of the US Fed's interest rate hikes limited losses.

Spot gold dipped 0.3 per cent to $1,902.59 per ounce, as of 0631 GMT, after hitting a session low of $1,896.32. Prices hit a near nine-month high on Monday. US gold futures fell 0.3 per cent to $1,903.90.

The yen witnessed a sharp dive against major currencies on Wednesday following Bank of Japan's announcement on maintaining ultra-low interest rates. Investors had been hoping that the central bank would relax its yield curve control policy further.

The central bank stunned the market last month by raising its cap on the 10-year yield to 0.5 per cent from 0.25 per cent, doubling the band it would permit above or below its target of zero. 

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said at the forum that global economic growth was expected to bottom out in 2023 despite the continued Ukraine war and rising interest rates.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos, Georgieva affirmed an IMF forecast for global growth to decelerate to 2.7 per cent this year from around 3.2 per cent last year.

A dispute on oil revenue-sharing between the Iraqi government and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region may be resolved within months, Iraqi Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani told Reuters in an interview at the Davos Summit. The two parties are expected to reach an agreement on a hydrocarbons law, he said. 

"What we have agreed is that all those pressures on the KRG will be halted and stopped for the moment and we will wait until we have the hydrocarbon law," Barzani said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

China's Vice-Premier Liu He declared his country open to the world on Tuesday. He said they welcomed foreign investment after reopening following a three-year isolation.

Liu's explicit pitch to global leaders gathered in Davos made it clear China wants international investors to play a key role in Beijing's attempts to revive its slowing economy.

"Foreign investments are welcome in China, and the door to China will only open up further," Liu, a top economic tsar and confidant of President Xi Jinping, said.

Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska told the WEF that she will be delivering a letter to Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He Liu to pass on to President Xi Jinping. The letter will lay out President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's proposals for ending Russia's war against his country.

The first day of official programming at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) annual meeting kicked off on Tuesday. Bold declarations were made by Europe and China in attempts to bolster their positions in the world.