BANK OF JAPAN Governor UEDA, in a speech read by Deputy Governor Uchida, said underlying inflation is close to 2%.

A Hong Kong working group is working with industry to explore a low‑altitude economy product export demonstration zone offering one‑stop services to facilitate cross‑border trade and support Chinese low‑altitude economy firms going overseas. China is cited as a global leader in the low‑altitude economy, particularly in drone manufacturing, end‑to‑end supply chains and application scenarios. With no global technical standard consensus, the HKSAR government says Hong Kong’s status as an aviation hub and innovation center positions it to build a standards framework that benchmarks international practice and links with the mainland. The government is validating technologies through a "regulatory sandbox" and "regulatory sandbox X" to strengthen local standards and is promoting cooperation with the mainland—especially the Guangdong‑Hong Kong‑Macao Greater Bay Area—and overseas jurisdictions to support standards alignment.

The EU is preparing to accelerate antitrust clearance of Project Bromo, a proposed joint venture by Airbus, Leonardo and Thales designed to build a European satellite champion and reduce reliance on US providers such as SpaceX. The commission has been consulting the three firms for a year to pre‑identify and address competition issues; the companies are expected to file in the coming weeks. If the parties offer remedies such as divestments, the deal could clear the one‑phase preliminary review (just over one month) without a protracted in‑depth investigation. Von der Leyen has signalled political support, but the EU competition commissioner stressed the project must comply with EU competition law.