After Thursday's US inflation print, bond traders trimmed bets on Fed hikes this year; the chance of a rate increase next month fell to about one-third. A tightening monetary-policy trend remains a headwind for gold, making it less attractive than yield-bearing assets such as Treasuries. Gold has largely priced the risk of further Fed tightening but has not priced a sustained higher-for-longer real-yields regime, said Invesco market strategist David Chao.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said the United States strongly supports Uzbekistan's accession to the World Trade Organization and recognizes the substantive progress it has made to date.

The National Energy Administration said the 15th Five-Year Plan will target a basically completed national unified power market, focusing on market access, trading cycles and governance. It will push provincial power trading spot markets into full formal operation, normalise cross-province transactions during grid operating periods and enable real-time trading between State Grid and China Southern Power Grid to deliver surplus wind and solar over long distances. Trading cycles will be optimised to better match renewable generation characteristics. The administration also said it will strengthen coordinated multi-agency supervision, apply uniform enforcement, and crack down on administrative market intervention, price collusion and abuse of market dominance to remove local protection and market barriers.