Asia Pacific

China’s placement of a North Korean- educated economist and an exemplar of debt-fueled infrastructure on its ruling body may add to challenges for Communist Party leader Xi Jinping as he seeks to deepen the nation’s development, Bloomberg reported. Zhang Dejiang, who studied economics at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, and Zhang Gaoli, whose city began building a mini-Manhattan under his watch, were appointed to the paramount Politburo Standing Committee in Beijing yesterday in the most important phase of a once-a-decade power transition.

Struggling paper, packaging and signage merchant PaperlinX has announced more restructuring and cost cuts in its business in the United Kingdom in response to depressed trading conditions in Europe, The Australian reported. The company said on Thursday that the UK restructuring would cost $3 million, but combined with cost cuts, would deliver $13 million in annual benefits.

Australian business conditions deteriorated last month to levels not seen since the global financial crisis, as a mining slowdown weighed on the country's resources-dominated economy, a private-sector survey showed Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. National Australia Bank's index of business conditions—which tracks indicators such as goods orders, employment and profitability—fell two points to minus-5 in October from September, the lowest level since May 2009 when world financial markets were in turmoil.

BTA Bank (BTA) exercised insufficient control and arranged payments to creditors in violation of a moratorium during its debt restructuring two years ago, according to a Kazakh government audit obtained by Bloomberg. The inspection, completed in February, found that the Almaty-based lender was breaching national legislation and bank regulations, a sign of an “inadequate level of control” on the part of BTA executives, the central bank’s financial oversight committee said in the document. The bank also arranged repayments that bypassed BTA itself, the regulator said.

New Zealand’s unemployment rate unexpectedly rose last quarter to a 13-year high, adding to evidence of a faltering recovery and sending the best-performing Group of 10 currency this year plunging, Bloomberg reported. The jobless rate jumped to 7.3 percent from 6.8 percent in the second quarter, Statistics New Zealand said in a report today in Wellington. That’s the highest since the first quarter of 1999 and was more than the 6.7 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Employment fell by 0.4 percent, or 8,000 jobs, from the second quarter, when it dropped 0.1 percent.

International lenders will resume bailout talks with Cyprus on Friday, authorities said, in an attempt to secure badly needed financial aid by the end of the year for an island exposed to Greece's debt meltdown, the Irish Times reported. A team representing the lenders, known as the troika, would arrive tomorrow and talks would resume on Friday, Cypriot government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said in a statement. He said the aim was to "secure an agreement on the programme for a loan" to Cyprus.

The Victorian Government says it has been given an assurance from the receivers of the financial group Banksia Securities that investors will get some of their money back, ABC News reported. A Government working group convened to provide help to those who have been affected by the collapse of Banksia met for the first time yesterday. Banksia went into receivership last month owing $660 million, much of which had been invested by regional Victorians. The chairman of the working group, Deputy Premier Peter Ryan, says the receivers cannot say what percentage of investors' money will be returned.

Sharp Corp. may turn to the last resort of Japanese companies facing potential bankruptcy -- the government, Bloomberg reported. With 200 billion yen ($2.5 billion) of convertible bonds maturing in 2013, Sharp may have to ask the state Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. or Innovation Network Corp. of Japan for money, said Fumiaki Sato, co-founder of Sangyo Sosei Advisory Inc., a turnaround advisory firm in Tokyo. Sharp has failed to win a planned 67 billion-yen equity investment from billionaire Terry Gou’s Foxconn Technology Group.

Korea’s total debt, combining those in private and public sectors, has reached 3 quadrillion won (about $2.75 trillion) in the second quarter, fanning worries that the country is increasingly exposed to a credit crisis, The Korea Times reported. According to the Bank of Korea (BOK) and the financial industry, the nation’s total debt stood at 2.96 quadrillion won in June, accounting for 233.8 percent of its nominal gross domestic product (GDP). The combined debt increased by 103 trillion won, or 3.6 percent for six months since December.

The Hong Kong government’s toughest efforts yet to curb a growing asset bubble in the city’s property market probably won’t be the last as record-low mortgage rates drive demand for the world’s priciest homes, Bloomberg reported. Policy makers last month imposed an extra 15 percent tax on all home purchases by companies and non-permanent residents, adding to steps to boost the supply of housing and tighten lending as an influx of buyers from other parts of China underpin soaring prices. Untouched is the major stimulant fuelling prices: borrowing costs tied to the U.S.