When other acquisitive Chinese groups were insisting they were not an arm of the state, China Energy Reserve and Chemicals Group was making the opposite case: trying to convince bankers and investors it belonged to the government. But the company’s recent default on a payment for a $350m bond, and its withdrawal from a $5.2bn property deal earlier in the year, was a sign that its state backing was not as strong as advertised, the Financial Times reported. The matter is sensitive for investors in Chinese bonds.

For all the talk of China’s mountain of debt, defaults and deleveraging, there’s a chasm nobody is talking about, a Bloomberg View reported. Here’s an alarming and frequently cited statistic: Chinese industrial companies have at least $124 billion of debt maturing over the next two years. Actually, it’s worse. They have another $34 billion of bonds with put options – giving creditors the right to sell back their securities or get a higher coupon – that can be exercised within the next two years. Lenders could be asking for their money back much sooner than companies and investors expect.

India’s central bank raised its main lending rate Wednesday, after inflation picked up following a recent surge in crude-oil prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Reserve Bank of India’s monetary-policy committee, headed by Gov. Urjit Patel, raised its repurchase rate to 6.25% from 6%. Equity markets, bonds and the Indian rupee were little changed in response. “This wasn’t a total surprise,” said Sujan Hajra, chief economist at Anand Rathi Securities. Still, nine out of 11 economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had predicted the RBI would leave the rate unchanged.

The battered Turkish lira has enjoyed a period of relative tranquility over the past two weeks. An emergency interest rate hike and soothing noises from senior officials appeared to calm nerves following a prolonged game of brinkmanship between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and international investors that drove the currency to record lows, the Financial Times reported. But the problems have not gone away. Figures released on Monday showed a sharp rise in inflation.

Asian companies face increased risk of default as politicians in the region accept more corporate failures, adding to strains as refinancing costs climb, Bloomberg News reported. China is allowing more defaults to happen as it promotes more market-driven pricing in bond markets, while India’s overhaul of its bankruptcy courts is forcing large delinquent borrowers into the courts. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has revised its default-rate forecast for Asian high-yield bonds to 2.8 percent, citing negative surprises such as China Energy Reserve & Chemicals Group Co.’s recent debt failure.

Australia left its key interest rate unchanged at a record low Tuesday after the key unemployment metric edged higher, Bloomberg News reported. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe kept the cash rate at 1.5 percent, where it has stood since 2016, as expected by all economists. The jobless rate hit 5.6 percent in April, moving further away from the central bank’s estimated level of full employment. The global picture has also become more clouded amid an emerging-market rout, populism in Europe and U.S. trade tariffs.

Debt collectors in China are harnessing new technologies such as artificial intelligence in a bid to collect on an estimated Rmb1.3tn ($200bn) debt bubble that has formed in the country’s peer-to-peer lending industry, the Financial Times reported. Thousands of online businesses connecting private lenders to people in need of cash sprang up across the country over the past five years, but a spate of scandals has put these lenders in the crosshairs of regulators. Many P2P lenders have been shut down since mid-2017 as lending controls have been implemented and licences required.

Household spending in Japan shrank for a third month running in April, suggesting a sluggish end to spending in the first quarter of 2018 carried on into the second, the Financial Times reported. Spending fell 1.3 per cent year on year in April, sharpening from a fall of 0.7 per cent in March and defying expectations of a rebound, per a median estimate of 0.8 per cent growth from economists surveyed by Reuters.

White Plains lawyer Michael E. Foreman has been appointed to help a Singapore company restructure $325 million in debt in a rare Chapter 15 cross-border bankruptcy, Westfair Business Publications reported. Blue Ocean Resources Pte. defaulted on notes due in 2020 and has filed a “scheme of arrangement” under the Companies Act in the Republic of Singapore. Blue Ocean is an investment and trading subsidiary of PT Central Proteina Prima Tbk, an aquaculture company based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Creditors have approved the reorganization plan proposed in Singapore.

After more than two years on the back-burner, there are signs that China is once again focusing on its efforts to increase the yuan’s status in global finance, Bloomberg News reported. The yuan grabbed a record 2.8 percent slice of global payments three years ago, before a crackdown on outflows in the wake of the 2015 devaluation saw that figure shrink to 1.7 percent as of April. These days -- with China’s foreign reserves rising and volatility staying low -- officials have a window to refocus on President Xi Jinping’s quest for a bigger Chinese role in global finance.