Baghdad’s talks with Turkey about ramping up oil exports from northern Iraq, including the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, is complicated by a $4 billion debt that the Kurds owe to Turkey, according to Iraq’s oil minister, Bloomberg News reported. Iraq is seeking an agreement with Turkey for all exports from the north, including the Kurdish region and the disputed province of Kirkuk, through a pipeline currently operated by the Kurds, Jabbar al-Luaibi told reporters in Baghdad. Iraq’s state-run Oil Marketing Co., known as SOMO, would control all exports under the agreement, he said.

One of the more persistent beliefs about the global economy is that Asians are more frugal than others. Whatever the true reason, data long supported the basic claim that Asian households were indeed careful with their cash. But over the past few years consumers across the region have done their best to prove that prudence was perhaps just a passing phase.Household debt in advanced economies has generally declined as a percentage of GDP since the 2008 global financial crisis, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

After years of propping up lossmaking state companies with fiscal subsidies and cheap credit, one Chinese province has embraced privatisation to cast off its burden, setting a precedent for dealing with thousands of “zombie enterprises,” the Financial Times reported.  Dongbei Special Steel, based in the north-east rust-belt province of Liaoning, is a high-profile example of the excessive debt and poor profitability that has plagued thousands of lossmaking state groups.

Shares in Reliance Communications jumped as much as 15.6 per cent after the troubled Indian telecom company announced a debt restructuring proposal that would hand a majority equity stake to its creditors, the Financial Times reported. RCom, controlled by tycoon Anil Ambani, has been struggling to service around Rs450bn ($6.9bn) of debt amid a price war launched by new entrant Reliance Jio, run by Mr Ambani’s brother Mukesh. Late on Monday night RCom said that, if lenders accept its plan, Rs70bn of its debt would be converted into 51 per cent of its equity.

The head of a credit fund under Indian billionaire Uday Kotak’s financial group says the government’s pledge of capital for beleaguered state banks could make it easier for distressed funds to buy loans, Bloomberg News reported. The Indian government said last week that it will inject 2.11 trillion rupees ($32 billion) of capital into state-controlled lenders over two years, as it seeks to revive growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

Shares in Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering shed close to two thirds of their value on Monday as the world’s second-largest shipbuilder traded for the first time in 15 months, the Financial Times reported. The stock dropped as much as 64.9 per cent from its closing level of Won44,800 on July 14, 2016, before pulling back slightly to be down 57.5 per cent at Won19,050.

It used to be that when America sneezed, the world caught a cold. This time around, it’s the risk of a sickly China that poses a bigger threat. The world’s second-largest economy is now trying to ward off the sniffles. While output is still growing at a pace that sees gross domestic product double every decade, the problem remains that much of that has been fueled by a massive buildup of credit, Bloomberg News reported.

Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. full-year earnings rose 18 percent on growth in its domestic banking businesses and lower bad debts, even as margins narrowed, Bloomberg News reported. Unaudited cash profit, which excludes one-time items, rose to A$6.94 billion ($5.3 billion) in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, from A$5.9 billion a year earlier, the Melbourne-based bank said in a statement Thursday. That compares with the A$6.97 billion median estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

China is returning to international bond markets for the first time in 13 years, with a $2 billion offering of U.S. dollar bonds that will allow the world’s second-largest economy to flex its financial muscle in the wake of its just completed Communist Party Congress. Bankers have begun marketing China’s five- and 10-year bonds to investors, primarily in Asia and Europe, and the securities are expected to price on Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Noble Group Ltd.’s sale of its oil business to Vitol Group probably buys the embattled commodity trader time. But even if it survives long enough to complete the deal, there’s still an almighty struggle ahead: the near-inevitable restructuring of over $3 billion in debt, Bloomberg News reported. Analysts at BNP Paribas SA, Nomura Holdings Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and iFast Corp. all predicted after the sale was announced on Monday that the Hong Kong-based company would be forced to restructure its debt.