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Money Daily Brief: China's economy growing faster

– Updated 12:18 EDT (16:18 UTC)

•Reawakened dragon: A quickening recovery by China is stoking a wider regional turnaround as new figures showed its than forecast in August. led by a 2.2 percent gain on the Shanghai composite index. But Japan's economy , with data showing its gross domestic product expanded at an annual 2.3 percent rate in the second quarter, slower than the 3.7 percent reported last month.

•Mixed bag for Morgan: A judge who convicted a former Morgan Stanley banker on nine counts of insider dealing in a landmark case for Hong Kong regulators for compliance lapses that allowed the trading to take place. Markets, meanwhile, digested news of a at the brokerage, with Co-president James Gorman set to take over from CEO John Mack in January.

•Doing good down under: Australia, the only major western economy to avoid recession, is with US oil firm Chevron's agreement on $60 billion (Australian; US$51.9 billion) in deals to supply natural gas to Japan and South Korea from its Gorgon project in Australia, making it a leading liquefied natural gas player in the region.

•US consumers: Their mood improved to its highest level since June, according to a survey of shoppers' sentiment. Separately, US to their lowest level in nearly three years, a sign they will need to restock soon.

•In my backyard: A long-awaited , the last British-owned mass market carmaker, revealed that five executives involved in its 2000 takeover enriched themselves with £42 million ($70.1 million) in pay and pensions as the troubled firm headed for insolvency five years later. Separately, the in the United Kingdom remains in doubt following the sale of General Motors’ European business – including Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in Germany – to Canada's Magna International and Russia’s Sberbank.

– Ben Quinn is a Monitor correspondent in London. For a look at China's attempts to grow its consumer market, see this Monitor exclusive: .