Asia Pacific

Doubling Japan’s sales tax by 2015 won’t be enough to contain the nation’s growing debt load and the government needs to outline how it will pay for swelling social-welfare expenses, a Standard & Poor’s analyst said, Bloomberg reported. “There’s no way that would be enough,” Takahira Ogawa, director of sovereign ratings at S&P in Singapore, said in a phone interview, referring to the plan to raise the levy by 5 percentage points.

Hong Kong is bracing for more finance-sector job cuts as Western banks, many of which base their regional operations in this business hub, scale back their Asian expansion amid the fallout from Europe's debt crisis and a generally weaker global economy, The Wall Street Journal reported.

China's Premier Wen Jiabao said the nation's government debt is at an "overall safe and controllable" level, that funding for key projects would be ensured and that applying the brakes to the economy would be done in a way to avoid systemic risks, Reuters reported. Wen's comments, reported in the official People's Daily on Monday, were made in a speech dating back to early January at the government's flagship financial work conference. Wen pledged to contain and defuse local government debt risks and avoid the spread of financial risks.

Kazakh lender BTA Bank said it will push ahead with talks to restructure its debt for the second time in as many years even after a shareholder meeting today failed to gain enough votes to begin the process. The results of the meeting in Almaty are “certainly not an impediment to achieving restructuring and the bank will continue to take all the necessary steps,” BTA said in a statement. Majority owner Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign-wealth fund, couldn’t back any resolutions on the agenda as an insufficient number of depositary-receipt holders voted, it said.

The International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday that global growth prospects had dimmed as the sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone entered a “perilous new phase,” the International Herald Tribune reported. Releasing quarterly updates of three reports on the outlooks for the economy, debt and global financial stability, the fund cut its estimates of global growth this year to 3.25 percent, from the 4 percent it forecast in September, on “sharply escalated” risks emanating from Europe.

Joe Hockey has called on Australians to embrace a new spirit of austerity, saying families and businesses should pay off debt to prepare for up to two decades of economic turmoil, The Australian reported. The opposition treasury spokesman said it critical for the government to pay off debt, but similar policies should be pursued in households and boardrooms. "The bottom line is that we are going to have a very volatile period, economic period, for the next 10-20 years, " he told ABC radio.

Kingfisher Airlines said it is in talks with Hong Kong-based SC Lowy and some other investors to raise funds, as the financially beleaguered airline expedites steps to stay afloat. The discussions come at a time when Kingfisher, controlled by liquor baron Vijay Mallya, is struggling with depleting cash flow, high debt and unpaid bills. The financial troubles have forced the airline to cut dozens of flights, ground several planes, stop its low-fare operations and seek government help to sustain its business.

Lenders to Air India on Thursday were unable to reach a decision on the ailing national carrier's $4 billion debt restructuring, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said, further delaying the airline's long-pending proposal, Reuters reported. Last week, the lenders -- a consortium of 13 banks led by State Bank of India -- deferred Air India's debt restructuring proposal, seeking a revision as they were reluctant to accept equity in the airline. One of the options discussed by the banks on Thursday was to convert the airline's debt into a government-backed bond, the sources said.

Chinese group Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile could make a fresh bid for failed Swedish carmaker Saab next week, sources with knowledge of the situation said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Saab was declared bankrupt by a Swedish court in December after protracted rescue efforts by owner Swedish Automobile. A key stumbling block was the refusal of former owner General Motors to allow its technology, which underpins Saab cars, to fall into Youngman's hands.

China’s banking regulator is weighing a plan to relax capital requirements for lenders after the world’s second-largest economy expanded at the slowest pace in 10 quarters, four people with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg reported. The China Banking Regulatory Commission is delaying implementing the most stringent capital adequacy ratios and may lower risk weightings for loans to small businessmen and companies, the people said, declining to be identified as the matter is confidential.