Asia Pacific

China’s new development bank will strive to be corruption free, maintain environmentally sound policies and work with a streamlined bureaucracy, the interim head of the institution, Jin Liqun, said on Saturday, the International New York Times reported. “We are committed to building a lean, clean and green bank,” Mr. Jin told the Singapore Forum, a gathering of Asian business and political leaders.

The Bank of Japan stuck with its monetary stimulus program on Wednesday, brushing off a lack of inflation two years after it vowed to pull the economy out of more than a decade of falling prices, the International New York Times reported. As its initial deadline for stoking inflation passed, the central bank maintained that consumer prices were temporarily depressed by cheaper oil, and would gradually rise as consumers and businesses spent more and the economy recovered further.

A onetime restaurant chain that became the first Chinese company to default on the principal on its local debt could be a test of Beijing’s willingness to give market forces a greater role in the economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a statement on the Shenzhen stock exchange website on Tuesday, Cloud Live Technology Group Co. said it was short 240.6 million yuan ($39.2 million) needed to pay back 400 million yuan in debt it sold three years ago.

Cyprus freed capital flows on Monday, ending two years of controls that set an unwanted precedent for the euro zone at the height of the bloc's debt crisis, Reuters reported. The Mediterranean nation became the first and, to date, the only euro zone member to impose controls, acting to stem a flight of capital from its banks in March 2013. But with an incremental relaxation over the past 18 months, banks reported no unusual activity on Monday.

The sudden rush to join China’s new Asian development bank by this week’s deadline, including last-minute applications by countries hardly considered Beijing’s best friends, astonished even the Chinese, the International New York Times reported. Few in Beijing had believed that Taiwan, still considered a breakaway territory by China, would want in. Same for Norway, whose relations with the Chinese have been chilly since its decision five years ago to award the Nobel Peace Prize to a dissident Chinese writer.

China will introduce on May 1 a program to insure bank deposits, the government said on Tuesday, ushering in an overhaul seen as vital for freeing up the highly protected banking sector, the International New York Times reported. Deposits of up to 500,000 renminbi, or about $81,000, will be insured under the program, which is expected to help reduce financial risks and protect the rights and interests of savers, the State Council, or cabinet, said on the government’s website.

China on Monday courted home buyers with a bigger tax break as it cut down-payment requirements for the second time in six months, stepping up a fight against sliding house prices that is imperiling the Chinese economy, the International New York Times reported. The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, said on its website that commercial banks could now lower their minimum down-payment requirement for buyers of second homes, and with outstanding mortgages, to 40 percent from 60 percent.

MPs on Monday wrapped up discussion of the fifth bill comprising the insolvency framework – a set of laws governing personal and corporate bankruptcy – hoping to put the whole package to a vote this Thursday. The fifth bill deals with the protection of primary homes, business premises and guarantors’ obligations to the principal debtor. The House aims to table the insolvency framework to the plenary for a vote by April 2, the last plenum before the Easter break. April 2 is also the date on which the foreclosures law – which the opposition has repeatedly blocked – comes into force.

Australia is considering changes to the way it taxes pension funds and targeting the tax practices of multinationals, as Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s conservatives struggle to shore up the country’s finances amid deep hostility to proposed austerity measures, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Monday, Mr. Abbott called for discussion on how an aging population was progressively shrinking income-tax receipts and urged the opposition Labor party to cooperate with reforms needed to steer Australia through the end of a mining boom that once powered the economy.

Zhou Xiaochuan, China’s central bank governor, warned on Sunday that the country needed to be vigilant about signs of deflation and said policy makers were closely watching the slowing of global economic growth and declines in commodity prices, the International New York Times reported. Mr. Zhou’s comments are likely to add to concerns that China is in danger of slipping into deflation and to underline increasing nervousness among policy makers as the economy continues to lose momentum despite a series of stimulus measures. “Inflation in China is also declining.