Thai authorities reached a tentative agreement to keep the inflation target at 1% to 3% for next year, with the Finance Ministry pressing the central bank to take steps to spur price gains and growth in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. The price goal, in place since 2020, could be retained in 2025 provided the Bank of Thailand comes up with policies to push up inflation to 2%, Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira told reporters after a two-hour meeting with central bank Governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput on Tuesday.

Japan’s labor market tightened in September, indicating sustained pressure on companies to raise wages ahead of the Bank of Japan’s policy meeting this week, Bloomberg News reported. The job-to-applicant ratio edged up to 1.24 from 1.23 in August, meaning that there were 124 jobs offered for every 100 applicants, the labor ministry reported Tuesday. Economists had forecast no change from 1.23. A separate report from the ministry of internal affairs showed that the jobless rate decreased to 2.4% in September, falling to the lowest since January.

China's central bank launched a new lending tool on Monday to inject more liquidity into the market and support credit flow in the banking system ahead of the expiration of trillions of yuan in loans at the end of the year, Reuters reported. The People's Bank of China said in a statement it had activated the open market outright reverse repo operations facility to "maintain a reasonable abundance of liquidity in the banking system and further enrich the central bank's policy toolbox".

As recently as 2010, few industries were as lawless, and yet as central to the global economy, as China’s production of rare earth metals, the New York Times reported. Consignments of rare earths frequently changed hands for sacks of Chinese currency: The rule of thumb was that a cubic foot of tightly packed 100-renminbi bills was worth $350,000. At a warehouse in Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, acid was used illegally to extract rare earths, and the residue, faintly radioactive, was dumped into the municipal sewage.

Funai Electric, a Japanese maker of audio and video equipment, received court approval for its bankruptcy plan on Thursday, credit research firm Teikoku Databank said, the Japan Times reported. Funai Electric, based in Daito, Osaka Prefecture, had some ¥46.1 billion ($303.6 million) in liabilities, Teikoku Databank said. Founded in 1961, the company had boasted a significant presence in Japan and abroad as an original equipment manufacturer.

China’s central bank kept a key policy rate steady in October, a widely expected move after officials made a flurry of rate cuts last month to support the ailing economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The People’s Bank of China on Friday injected 700 billion yuan of liquidity into the country’s banking system via its one-year medium-term lending facility at an unchanged rate of 2.0%. That compared with a total of 789 billion yuan of MLF loans due this month, marking a net cash withdrawal of 89 billion yuan.

China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle said on Friday that its potential sellers have decided to cease talks for a stake sale in the company, which is the electric vehicle unit of the debt-laden China Evergrande, Reuters reported. In May, liquidators of the parent company - which held 58.5% in the EV unit - said they were talking to a third-party buyer to sell a 29% stake in the EV group, with an option to sell the rest of the holding within a certain period of time.

Funai Electric, a Japanese midsize electronics manufacturer and Walmart supplier, has received court approval to start bankruptcy proceedings, it was revealed on Thursday, having fallen victim to intensifying competition with Chinese and South Korean manufacturers, Nikkei Asia reported. A quasi-bankruptcy petition was filed for Funai at Tokyo District Court. A normal bankruptcy petition is filed by the company itself, but when circumstances make that impossible, a company director or other party can file for quasi-bankruptcy in its place.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has directed initiation of insolvency proceedings against realty firm Spaze Towers, admitting a plea filed by its flat owners, the Economic Times of India reported. A two-member NCLT bench said that the company has defaulted in completing the construction of flats in project 'Spaze Arrow' at Sector 78, Gurugram and giving the possession within the promised timeline of 42 months.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said on Wednesday it was "still taking time" to sustainably achieve its 2% inflation target, signaling that the central bank will tread carefully in pushing up the country's still near-zero interest rates, Reuters reported. But he also warned of the cost of moving too slowly in raising rates, which could give speculators an excuse to trigger an unwelcome yen slide that pushes up import costs. "When there's huge uncertainty, you usually want to proceed cautiously and gradually," Ueda said at a panel at the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday.