China’s growth will likely slow to 6.2 percent this year and 6 percent in 2020, as more of the economy shifts toward consumption and services, according to a biennial report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Bloomberg News reported. OECD estimated 2019 expansion would be 6.3 percent in an outlook published last year. China faces risks "tilted to the downside," including large-scale corporate defaults, a collapse of housing prices and rising geopolitical tensions, the OECD wrote in its economic survey on China published Tuesday.

So, the Chinese economy does have a pulse after all. Credit extension by banks and bond issuance by local governments are supporting some kind of revival in infrastructure investment, and a 30 per cent rise in the Chinese equity market since the start of this year is helping to lift the intensely pessimistic mood that paralysed Chinese spending in the latter part of 2018, the Financial Times reported. The stimulus policies that China started to introduce last summer, and intensified more recently, now seem to be reviving the patient.

Turkey’s reform package laid out last week won’t be enough to restore Turkish households’ and foreign investors’ confidence in the lira, one of S&P Global’s top sovereign analysts said on Monday, Reuters reported. Turkey pledged last week to inject almost $5 billion into its state-owned banks to help them cope with an expected rise in defaults following the country’s slump into recession, but the plan has been criticised for being light on detail.

The top shareholder of South Korea’s second-largest carrier, Asiana Airlines, said on Monday it would sell its entire stake in the debt-ridden firm to keep it afloat, sending shares of the carrier and its budget arm 30 percent higher, Reuters reported. The move caps weeks of financial uncertainty involving the carrier which started last month when it failed to win auditors’ sign-off on its 2018 financial statements, triggering warnings of credit ratings downgrades and the resignation of the parent group’s chairman.

CWT International Ltd., controlled by HNA Group Co., failed to pay interest on a HK$1.4 billion ($179 million) facility, prompting lenders to demand immediate repayment of the loan, the company said Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported. The Hong Kong-listed company will have to make good on the payment by 9 a.m. April 17 to prevent lenders from taking action, it said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Cyprus is weighing an early repayment for part of a 2.5 billion-euro ($2.8 billion) Russian loan that dates back to the low point of the financial crisis, two government officials said, after yields on the country’s 10-year debt hit a record low last week, Bloomberg News reported. While the government is seriously considering early repayment, no final decision has been made yet, said one of the officials, who asked not to be named citing the ongoing decision-making process.

Turkey’s economy is expected to contract in 2019 after a decade of strong growth, and economists are predicting a longer recession ahead after a recent bout of volatility in the lira, a Reuters poll showed on Friday. The Turkish economy contracted 3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year after a currency crisis devalued the lira by nearly 30 percent against the dollar, Reuters reported. It drove inflation to a 15-year high, severely limited companies’ ability to service foreign debt and multiplied bad loans in the banking sector.

Chinese independent refiner Shandong Haiyou Petrochemical Group aims to restart its key crude oil unit in June, a year after it was idled following a bankruptcy filing, according to four sources with knowledge of the matter, Reuters reported. The refinery in Juxian county in the eastern province of Shandong is preparing to restart a 70,000 barrels per day crude unit shut since last May after local government-led investment helped the firm clear most of its debts. “The dead is returning...

Jet Airways pilots announced on Sunday that they would go on strike over unpaid salaries, heaping more pressure on the cash-strapped Indian carrier to find a new owner to bail it out, the Financial Times reported. The airline is saddled with more than $1.2bn debt and has not been able to pay pilots their salaries for over three months. It left passengers around the world stranded on Thursday when it cancelled its international flights. The carrier is down to fewer than 10 operational aeroplanes out of a fleet of 123, raising fears of an imminent shutdown.

Local governments in China have flooded the market with Rmb1.2tn ($179bn) in bond issuance during the first three months of the year, in another sign of how Beijing hopes to kick-start economic growth with infrastructure spending, the Financial Times reported. The fundraisings represent a dramatic shift in how China is allowing smaller governments to raise debt — there was no local bond issuance during the first quarter over the past two years, according to data from Moody’s. The efforts come as China faces its slowest rate of economic growth in almost three decades.