South Korea’s central bank unexpectedly cut the benchmark interest rate to a new record low Thursday, citing growing risks to the economy including slowing global trade and the government’s push to restructure indebted companies, Bloomberg News reported. The decision to cut the seven-day repurchase rate to 1.25 percent, which was unanimous, was projected by only one of 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. While Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was the sole forecaster predicting a cut at this meeting, Citigroup Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc, and Nomura Holdings Inc.

The South Australian government said on Thursday it would provide A$50 million ($37 million) in funding to help keep Arrium Ltd's loss-making Whyalla steelworks open under a new owner, Reuters reported. State Labor premier Jay Weatherill has also pressed Australia's two major parties to commit to contribute A$100 million from the federal government to help keep Whyalla open. "The Arrium operations at Whyalla are critical to both South Australia and the nation as a whole - it is essential that we retain our sovereign steel-making capability," Weatherill said in a statement.

South Korea will pump $9.5bn into state-run policy lenders reeling from huge losses on loans made to the beleaguered shipbuilding and shipping sectors to help them deal with further corporate distress, the Financial Times reported. Corporate restructuring has emerged as the top priority of President Park Geun-hye’s administration as losses balloon in major export industries and the country’s industrial titans struggle to stay afloat under mountains of debt and amid slowing economic growth.

A local court on Tuesday approved a filing by financially shaky STX Offshore & Shipbuilding to be put under a court-led restructuring scheme, paving the way for the shipyard to avert liquidation, The Korea Times reported. Last month, STX Shipbuilding, once the country's No. 4 shipbuilder, filed for receivership to stay afloat as its creditors decided to end a similar rehabilitation program for the shipbuilder. The shipbuilder has been under the control of its creditors since April 2013 amid a protracted slump in the shipbuilding sector.

China's manufacturing activity showed signs of steadying in May but remained weak amid soft demand at home and abroad, suggesting the world's second-largest economy is still struggling to regain traction, the International New York Times reported. A rebound in March had raised hopes that China's economy was reviving, breathing life into global financial and commodity markets, but analysts said the soggy activity readings and weak April data suggest no quick recovery is in sight.

When he took office, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to restore Japan’s economy to robust health and win the country’s long battle with deflation, The Wall Street Journal reported. Wednesday’s decision by Mr. Abe to put off a planned tax increase is a stark signal that he hasn’t delivered yet, and it isn’t clear when he can. The move risks making it harder for Japan to lighten its enormous debt burden. But as Mr. Abe saw it, his country’s economic weakness left him little choice.

In good news for insolvency firms but not much else, insolvencies are rising and the number of retailers appointing external administrators is also up, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Electronics chain Dick Smith, home furnishings company Laura Ashley Australia and clothing retailer Man To Man are among retailers to have gone under recently. John Winter, chief executive of the industry body Australian Restructuring Insolvency & Turnaround Association, said after a quiet collapse of years, insolvency firms are now hiring staff as the end of the resources boom starts to bite.

The Philippines’ new finance secretary appointed by the hard-nosed incoming president, Rodrigo Duterte, has vowed that the new government won’t destroy the economic gains of the outgoing Aquino administration, but will work to spread them to ordinary Filipinos, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We are here to build on, not destroy, those gains,” said Carlos Dominguez, who last served as minister two decades ago. He currently owns the Marco Polo Hotel in Davao City on southern Mindanao island, where his childhood friend, Mr. Duterte, is the longtime mayor. Mr.

Some 45 per cent of Japan’s households now include one person aged 65 years or more, government figures show, underlining how swiftly the country is moving towards a costly demographic inflection point, the Financial Times reported. The quickening advance towards a crossover point that will change the country’s economic landscape and the companies serving it, comes with a shrinking dependency ratio. By 2060, there will be 1.3 Japanese of working age (15-64) for every person over 65, according to a government white paper on ageing.

Embattled commodity trader Noble Group announced the surprise resignation of CEO Yusuf Alireza on Monday and said it planned to sell a U.S. unit to bolster its balance sheet as it seeks to regain investor confidence, the International New York Times reported. Alireza, a former Goldman Sachs banker had steered Asia's biggest commodity trader to sell assets, cut business lines and take big writedowns as it battled weak commodity markets and the fallout from an accounting dispute. "With this transformation process now largely complete, Mr.