Asia Pacific

India will scrap a tax of 6% on digital advertisements online, the finance minister said on Tuesday, easing costs for U.S. tech giants such as Alphabet's Google, Meta and Amazon as a way of soothing U.S. trade concerns, Reuters reported. The move responds to concerns raised by Washington after President Donald Trump threatened reciprocal tariffs from April 2 on trading partners, including India, that fuelled alarm among exporters.

China’s central bank unveiled a new method for pricing its one-year loans to banks, the latest move in policymakers’ efforts to revamp their monetary toolkit, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China announced in a statement that banks will be able to bid for different prices on its one-year loans, known as the medium-term lending facility. Qualified lenders will be able to pay different interest rates for the loan starting from Tuesday, and the loans will come in a fixed amount each month, according to the statement.

For a symbol of the chaos engulfing world trade since the Trump administration walked into the White House, look no further than a pile of 16,000 metric tons of steel pipes. Stevedores in Germany should be preparing to load the first batch on a ship bound for a massive energy project in Louisiana. Instead the cargo is sitting in a German warehouse after Washington proposed putting million-dollar levies on Chinese ships docking in the US, Bloomberg News reported.

Nearly 12% of South Korean firms became insolvent last year due to the downturn in construction and real estate, marking the highest level since 2019. These companies, burdened with more debt than assets, face complete capital erosion and financial instability, the Chosun Daily reported. According to the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) on March 23, about 4,466 companies, or 11.9% of all 37,510 externally audited companies (excluding financial firms), are expected to be completely insolvent.

A large number of home buyers face a roadblock at the doors of MahaRERA when projects that they have invested in land at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) following initiation of insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings, the Times of India reported.

During Donald Trump’s first presidency, China was determined not to yield to American pressure over trade like Japan did in the 1980s, the Wall Street Journal reported. Now, faced with an even greater economic assault from the second Trump presidency at a time of sluggish growth at home, Beijing may take a page from Tokyo’s playbook—on one specific issue it sees as in its own interest. Like Japan decades ago, China is considering trying to blunt greater U.S.

Employees at major Japanese companies have been promised the biggest pay increases in 34 years. That’s a good sign for the economy, but forces smaller firms with smaller budgets to get creative to stay competitive in the labor market, the Wall Street Journal reported. Rather than raising base salaries, which can be costly enough to strain a company’s finances to the point of bankruptcy, small and medium-sized enterprises are looking at boosting benefits.

Budget carrier SpiceJet is facing fresh insolvency proceedings, this time from Indonesia’s PT BBN Airlines over unpaid lease rentals totalling $5.94 million, Mint.com reported. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Delhi bench, heard the case on Friday but has yet to issue a notice after SpiceJet sought time to respond. The next hearing has been scheduled for 21 April. PT BBN Airlines claims SpiceJet leased three Boeing aircraft under specific agreements, took possession on 9 June 2024, and used them for operations.