Etihad Airways is holding talks with Jet Airways Ltd and its bankers on a rescue plan for the debt-laden Indian carrier, two sources aware of the matter told Reuters. Executives from Etihad and Jet have met some of the airline's bankers in Mumbai in recent days to discuss ways to address its cash flow issues and evaluate the carrier's future business plan, the sources said.

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Pockets of trouble in credit markets can originate in the most unlikely of spots, and that’s particularly true in China, Bloomberg News reported. From freezing Harbin in the north to tropical Hainan in the south, developers in Asia’s biggest economy have gorged on debt over the past decade and now owe global bond investors $114 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. With demand in some rural regions now cooling and authorities narrowing funding options, the credit shakeout that bears have been predicting for years could be at hand.

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China’s bid to ease funding strains faced by private sector firms is proving to be tough going and signs are that things may get gloomier, Bloomberg News reported. Local company bond failures are at their highest levels this year and show no indications of abating. Junk bond sales have slumped to 2014 lows and spreads between lower and top rated borrowers are hovering near the widest in more than two years. What makes all this worse is the slowing economy, according to Nanjing Securities Co.

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Corporate treasury departments in India have become so concerned about credit risk they’re increasingly parking their cash in securities maturing overnight. Assets with overnight funds soared to 123 billion rupees ($1.8 billion) last month, from 39 billion rupees in September, as companies chose safety over returns in the wake of a rare debt default, data from Morningstar Investment Adviser India Pvt. show, Bloomberg News reported.

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Pakistan’s currency plunged as much as 5 per cent on Friday in what traders suspect was a devaluation of the currency amid rescue talks with the IMF, the Financial Times reported. The currency traded as weak as 141 rupees to the US dollar, from Thursday’s closing level of 133.9, according to Refinitiv data. ”The IMF’s main demands [for a new loan] included a devaluation of the rupee,” a central bank official in Karachi told the Financial Times. The rupee has tumbled about a fifth since the end of last year in a series of devaluations to avoid a balance of payments crisis.

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India’s massive pile of bad business debt has kept asset-reconstruction companies busy in recent years. But as signs emerge that the supply of such assets may be leveling off, the nation’s largest buyer of bad loans is considering a rare move to start purchasing soured consumer debt, Bloomberg News reported. Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Co. is setting up a team for that and seeks to start purchases in 2019, Chief Executive Officer Raj Kumar Bansal said in an interview. “Corporate non-performing assets have plateaued,” Bansal said.

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India’s economy grew at a much slower pace than economists expected last quarter, giving the central bank more reason to keep interest rates unchanged this week, Bloomberg News reported. After breaking through the 8 percent mark in the quarter through June, growth eased to 7.1 percent in the three months through September -- lower than almost all the estimates in a Bloomberg survey -- as back-to-back rate hikes in June and August, a funding squeeze and subdued growth in farming put a brake on the world’s fastest-expanding economy.

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India’s foreign ministry is investigating claims by expatriates in Ethiopia who say they are being held hostage by local staff that haven’t been paid after the shadow lender Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd. began defaulting on $12.6 billion in debt, Bloomberg News reported. Seven Indian workers from infrastructure financing firm IL&FS, which rocked financial markets after it began missing debt payments in late August, have been detained since Nov.

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China is preparing to end its $176 billion experiment with peer-to-peer lending. Alarmed by a surge in defaults, fraud and investor anger, Chinese authorities are planning to wind down small- and medium-sized P2P lending platforms nationwide, people with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. Regulators may also order the largest platforms to cap outstanding loans at current levels and encourage them to reduce lending over time, one of the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private deliberations. Shares of P2P platform operators sank in New York.

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