Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:

• A “new era” in India-EU relations

• The Chinese sportswear company betting on Puma

• Why Asia’s currencies have slumped against the dollar

New Delhi and Brussels have agreed a trade deal that will eliminate up to €4bn of tariffs on EU exports and could double shipments from the bloc to India. Here’s what to know about the long-awaited agreement.

What’s in the deal? The pact will slash or reduce tariffs on 96.6 per cent of EU exports to India, reducing the costs of goods including cars, alcohol and machinery. Sensitive agricultural sectors for both sides, such as dairy, sugar and some meats, were left untouched. The sides sealed the agreement yesterday during a visit to India by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa.

‘The mother of all trade deals’: Brussels billed the deal as the largest ever concluded by either side. “Dear prime minister, we did it. We delivered the mother of all trade deals,” von der Leyen told India’s Narendra Modi, who hailed a “new era” in relations at the signing ceremony.

The Trump effect: Brussels and New Delhi have faced a barrage of tariffs from US President Donald Trump, who has imposed levies of up to 50 per cent on the country’s purchases of Russian oil. The EU collectively is India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade in goods and services worth more than €180bn per year, according to Brussels. The deal offered “a relief” to Indian exporters “grappling with a steep 50 per cent baseline tariff rate in the US, India’s other major export destination alongside Europe”, said Alexandra Hermann, lead India economist at Oxford Economics.

Here are more details on the EU-India trade agreement.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: Australia publishes December inflation data.

• UK-China relations: Sir Keir Starmer is due to arrive in Beijing today, the first trip to the Chinese capital by a British leader since 2018.

• Monetary policy: The US Federal Reserve is set to hold rates when it meets today. The Bank of Japan publishes minutes from its meeting in December, when it decided to raise rates to the highest level in three decades.

Five more top stories

1. Japan’s yen steadied yesterday as traders in Tokyo watched for signs of government intervention following days of big swings in the widely traded currency. “The market is starting to test” how much capacity and capability the government has to intervene, said Shoki Omori, chief global desk strategist at Mizuho. Read the full story.

2. Canada’s oil industry is thriving as it pushes into Asian markets in a bid to reduce its reliance on US sales, defying some analysts’ fears that a surge of Venezuelan barrels on to global markets could undercut demand for its similar crude. Sales to China more than quadrupled to 88.7mn barrels last year, after the opening of a new pipeline in 2024 enabled Canadian crude to flow from Alberta’s oilfields to the west coast for export to Asia.

3. Anthropic is set to raise about $20bn from venture capitalists and other investors, double the amount it had targeted in a sign of surging investor enthusiasm for the high-profile AI start-up. The fundraising deal, which is close to being finalised, would value the company at $350bn, said people familiar with the matter.

4. The Trump administration has indicated to Ukraine that US security guarantees are contingent on Kyiv first agreeing a peace deal that would probably involve ceding the Donbas region to Russia, according to eight people familiar with talks. Read the full story.

5. Iran’s president has begun implementing emergency measures to shore up supplies of essential goods and keep government running in case of new attacks on the country by the US or Israel. The move appeared designed to delegate powers to provinces if senior figures were assassinated.

News in-depth

Chinese sportswear company Anta started in 1991 as a contract manufacturer in Fujian, a coastal province that quickly became a production hub for western brands such as Nike and Adidas. But Anta has long pursued a strategy of rivalling those same companies it once produced shoes for. This week, it took its most prominent step yet towards that goal with its €1.5bn purchase of a 29 per cent stake in Puma, the struggling German brand.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Chinese students: Two in five overseas students at the UK’s top-ranking universities last year came from China, underlining concerns about the financial risks of relying so heavily on a single recruitment market.

• Arctic security: Nordic nations hope Trump’s fixation on Greenland will spur Nato to catch up with years of Russian military build-up in the region.

• Good speeches: Leaders don’t need to write every word themselves — like Mark Carney’s Davos speech — but they do need to make sure it clearly represents their vision, writes Stephen Bush.

Chart of the day

After Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs led to a weaker dollar last year, expectations rose of an “FX avalanche” of Asian exporters’ currencies rapidly appreciating. Instead, the opposite has happened. Here’s why Asia’s currencies have slumped against the dollar.

Take a break from the news . . . 

Roy Choi, the 55-year-old from Netflix’s The Chef Show and PBS’s Broken Bread, knows Los Angeles. In this interview with FT Globetrotter’s Lilah Raptopoulos he takes us on a food tour of his native city.