Increasing prices are a big deal in Japan. The country’s sluggish economy means that the cost of most things has not risen in 20 years, and almost any increase makes headlines, the International New York Times reported. Consumer prices are a painful economic headache for Japan. The country’s officials have been trying to break this stubborn pattern of deflation by pumping money into the economy and bolstering public spending.

Xi Jinping has called for the Communist Party to “resolutely push forward supply-side structural reform,” the People’s Daily reported Monday. Last week the Party mouthpiece carried two manifestos for reform, an interview with an anonymous “authoritative person” and the transcript of a speech by President Xi. The paradox of the Xi agenda is that he wants to use China’s Leninist system of political control to drive more free-market reform. Mr.

Businessman and retiring federal MP Clive Palmer will sue the administrators of his beleaguered Queensland Nickel refinery in Townsville for $1.2 billion, ABC News reported. Mr Palmer said he would sue FTI Consulting in the coming weeks for allegedly lying in a report to creditors and illegally diverted money from his companies. Queensland Nickel appointed FTI Consulting as administrators in January to oversee the refinery after it went into voluntary administration. The company went into liquidation last month owing creditors more than $150 million.

China’s central bank is investigating the accuracy of non-performing loans (NPLs) data at banks, people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday. The development underlines policymakers’ concerns about rising debt in the country. Specifically, the central bank’s financial stability bureau is investigating whether any NPLs have been miscategorised as normal loans or special mention loans, referring to debt at risk of default, according to two sources who saw a central bank notice on the issue.

Massive overcapacity in China's steel industry is not yet falling, a vice minister said on Monday, as the country's leading steel companies conceded that current output was unsustainable and blamed the restart of mills previously shut, the International New York Times reported. China is facing anger and calls for trade penalties to block its exports by global rivals, who say it is dumping cheap exports after a slowdown in demand at home.

Singapore-listed oil and gas company Linc Energy Ltd owes creditors A$289.4 million ($210.28 million) and should be wound up, according to its administrators. The company entered into voluntary administration a month ago, suffering from debt woes amid a slump in energy prices. Administrators PPB Advisory released a report on Friday recommending the company be liquidated. "We recommend that it is in the creditors' interests that the company be wound up," the report said.

Implicit guarantees are ubiquitous in China, but one company went a step further when it appealed to the central bank to give an explicit reassurance to creditors that the government will not permit any default, the Financial Times reported. China City Construction Holding Group Co saw yields on its Hong Kong-traded “dim sum” bonds spike recently after a surprise privatisation, highlighting the ways moral hazard distorts capital allocation in the world’s largest economy.

China’s run of disappointing April data underscore the bind facing policy makers seeking to cut capacity from the worst-performing sectors and curb credit excesses in recovering ones without stalling the economy. Bloomberg’s monthly gross domestic product tracker shows growth slowed to 6.88 percent in April, from 7.11 percent in March. Weak steel and coal output dragged on industrial production, which increased 6 percent from a year earlier versus economists’ forecasts of 6.5 percent, while retail and investment readings also disappointed, according to reports released on Saturday.

India’s Parliament has passed a bankruptcy law that promises to make it easier to wind up a failing business and recover debts in Asia’s third-largest economy, The Wall Street Journal The Short Answer blog reported. The country’s banks are currently struggling with bad loans after the crash in commodity prices and slowdown in infrastructure projects affected corporates’ balance sheets and their capacity to settle debt.

India's upper house of parliament passed a new bankruptcy code on Wednesday, as the opposition swung behind measures to take tougher action against corporate defaulters and help banks recover over $120 billion in troubled loans. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who completes two years in office this month, had promised to introduce the code to address bank debts and improve ease of doing business in Asia's third largest economy.