World leaders announced their most forceful response to the surge in oil prices since the war in Iran began at the end of last month, with Japanese and German officials saying they would release oil from their strategic reserves, the New York Times reported. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan would begin releasing oil as early as next Monday. Less than an hour later, Germany’s economy minister, Katherina Reiche, said her country would also release oil. Austria will also release oil from its reserves, the country’s economy minister, Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, said.

China’s domestic passenger car sales fell sharply in February from a year earlier, industry figures showed Wednesday, reflecting weakening demand as some trade-in subsidies are phased out, Bloomberg News reported. Only 950,000 units of passenger cars were sold in China last month, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, down from nearly 1.4 million vehicles sold in January. It was the fourth straight month of year-on-year declines.

A growing number of residents in Seoul are falling into irrecoverable debt, with new city data showing that people in their 60s and older now make up the majority of personal bankruptcy applicants, The Korea Herald reported. Six out of every 10 individuals who sought personal bankruptcy assistance through the Seoul Financial Welfare Counseling Center last year were aged 60 or above, according to a report released Tuesday. The center analyzed 1,192 valid bankruptcy applications filed in 2025 as part of its annual review of bankruptcy counseling cases.

Courts in South Korea will use a new set of guidelines in rehabilitation hearings to write off people’s crypto debts in an attempt to stop citizens from going bankrupt, DLNews.com reported. The new rules will see three courts, opened this month in the cities of Daejeon, Daegu, and Gwangju, exclude debts incurred from stock or cryptocurrency investments from liquidation calculations. And this, in turn, will reduce the overall amount debtors need to pay their creditors in personal rehabilitation proceedings, South Korean media outlet EToday reported.

Corporate dispute appellate tribunal NCLAT has set aside an appeal filed by Reliance Realty seeking insolvency proceedings against Altruist Customer Management, the Economic Times of India reported. A three-member bench of the appellate tribunal upheld the order of the Delhi-based National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) which had rejected the insolvency plea after it observed a pre-existing dispute between the parties. The NCLT, on October 5, 2024, dismissed the plea after it observed a dispute of over Rs 24.34 crore.

China's exports jumped nearly 22% in the first two months of the year from a year earlier, powered by a surge in shipments of computer chips, autos and electronics, the Associated Press reported. The export figures released by China’s customs agency on Tuesday were much better than economists had forecast. They far exceeded the 6.6% annual pace of growth recorded in December. Shipments to the U.S. fell 11% in January and February, narrowing from a 30% drop in December. Exports to the European Union increased almost 28% while those to Latin America climbed 16%.

The Trump administration has reached a tentative deal to drop criminal charges against a Turkish bank over whether it had done business with Iranian entities, saying it deserved leniency because of Turkey’s help in negotiating the release of hostages from the Hamas attack in Israel in October 2023, the New York Times reported. The proposed settlement for the state-run bank, Halkbank, would bring an end to a case in which prosecutors had charged it with illicitly transferring about $20 billion worth of otherwise restricted Iranian funds.

The number of corporate bankruptcies in Japan involving liabilities of at least ¥10 million ($63,000) totaled 851 last month, the highest level in 13 years for a February, Tokyo Shoko Research said Monday, the Japan Times reported. The figure marked a year-on-year rise of 11.3% and the third consecutive monthly increase, driven in part by worsening business conditions that reflected sluggish sales and growing labor shortages. By industry, the service sector saw the largest increase, climbing 30.9% to 309 cases.