Asia Pacific

The Crafar family farms put into receivership three years ago are now legally in the hands of their new Chinese owner, Radio New Zealand reported. The Shanghai Pengxin group had to overcome legal challenges from New Zealand farming and Maori interests but finally took possession of the 16 North Island farms on Friday. Spokesman Cedric Allan says the aim is to lift production on the 13 dairy and three dry stock farms under the management of the state owned farming enterprise LandCorp.

Japan has unleashed a new barrage of stimulus at its stagnant economy as debate over how to revive growth heats up ahead of a general election, The Australian reported on an AAP story. The stimulus package announced by the cabinet on Friday totals Y880.3 billion ($A10.34 billion). It is earmarked mainly for spending on social programs, employment creation and support for small and medium-size enterprises. The economy shrank 3.5 per cent in July-September, and many economists say they expect a further contraction in the current quarter.

Political interference has impeded an investigation into the collapse of Afghanistan's largest private lender, with some investors, including President Hamid Karzai's brother Mahmood, escaping scrutiny, a joint Afghan-international watchdog said in a report released Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Afghan Attorney General's investigation into Kabul Bank's 2010 collapse has led to the prosecution of several bank executives, who have been on trial in the Afghan capital for about a month.

Indian wind-turbine maker Suzlon Energy Ltd. has reached an agreement with its lenders to restructure 110 billion rupees ($1.98 billion) of local loans, a person with knowledge of the matter said Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company will get a two-year holiday on interest and principal payments on the debt, which was due in five to six years, this person said. At the end of two years, the loans will be repaid over eight years at a lower interest rate, the person added. Suzlon declined to comment on the matter.

Banks face hidden risks from their links to China's fast-growing "shadow-finance" industry, a term for all types of credit outside formal lending channels. Shadow finance in China totals about 20 trillion yuan, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., or about a third the current size of the country's bank-lending market. In 2008, such informal lending represented only 5% of total bank lending. The sector is lightly regulated and opaque, raising concerns about massive loan defaults amid a softening economy, with ancillary effects on the country's banks.

Indian officials pledged to cut the widest budget deficit among the world’s largest emerging markets and curb public debt, as a report this week may show the economy grew at close to the slowest pace in three years, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The government is "optimistic" it will rein in the shortfall for the year through March 31 to 5.3 percent of gross domestic product from the previous year's 5.8 percent, and has no plan "at the moment" to increase its record borrowing program, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in Pune, India, on Nov. 24.

The Australian government was granted permission by a court on Friday to prepare legal action against coal baron Nathan Tinkler as creditors close in on the former billionaire, Reuters reported on Saturday. The New South Wales Supreme Court gave the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation leave to prepare a case against Tinkler's holding company, the latest of a series of legal actions over unpaid bills and commercial disputes.

The front-runner to become Japan's next prime minister said that he would consider loosening some of the nation's fiscal-discipline policies, in defiance of warnings by credit raters to curb borrowing by the heavily indebted government, suggesting instead more spending to help jump-start growth, the Wall Street Journal reported today. "First, we will concentrate our policy tools to curb deflation," opposition leader Shinzo Abe said yesterday.

With its gleaming shopping malls and omnipresent luxury brands, Hong Kong is an easy place to turn spendthrift. And if a survey last month of 1,000 Hong Kong residents is any indicator, it’s a hard place to hold onto cash, the China RealTime blog reported. Fully two-thirds of primary income earners reported having less than a month’s income saved in the bank. Those numbers come as a surprise, given that Hong Kong is “quite a wealthy zone,” says Peter Barrett, global managing director of lifestyle protection for insurance company Genworth GNW +0.54%, which commissioned the survey.

Liquidators have been appointed to a private company owned by struggling Australian mining magnate Nathan Tinkler over a A$28.4 million ($29.6 million) debt, exposing the coal baron to extensive scrutiny of his finances, Reuters reported. The New South Wales Supreme Court ordered on Tuesday that Mulsanne Resources Pty Ltd be wound up, suspending Tinkler's powers as a director of the company and giving liquidators access to its books to recover the money owed to junior coal company Blackwood Corp Ltd.