Asia Pacific

Cyprus's government agreed on a series of austerity measures, seeking to avoid a bailout after a blast at its largest power station this month has led to rolling blackouts, compounding its existing economic problems, such as its close ties with Greece, The Wall Street Journal reported. The country was already wrestling with modest growth and possible contagion from Greece, which received a second euro-zone bailout Thursday, when a blast July 11 reduced Vasilikos, the island nation's largest power plant, to twisted metal and rubble.

A Japanese court on Friday approved a rehabilitation plan for failed consumer lender Takefuji, allowing the company to tie up with Korean consumer lender A&P Financial, according to Takefuji's website, Reuters reported. The plan, submitted by Takefuji's court-appointed trustee, was preferred to two competing schemes put forward by creditor groups. It faced opposition from creditors because of its structure, in which 1.5 trillion yen ($19 billion) of debt is held by 900,000 creditors who are either debt holders or customers asking for refunds of overcharged interest payments.

Queensland property franchise Go Gecko has been placed into voluntary administration, but the company says its franchisees will be unaffected by the move, StartupSmart reported. Go Gecko was founded in 2006 by Geoff Doyle and operates more than 50 outlets across the country, describing itself as the “pioneers of capped commission real estate”. It’s been revealed the Brisbane-based company called in administrators on Tuesday, highlighting the tough conditions plaguing the property market.

China's largest offshore oil and gas producer plans to spend $2.1 billion US buying Opti Canada Inc. in a move expected to inject cash into the troubled Long Lake oilsands project, in which the beleaguered Calgary firm has a stake, the Calgary Herald reported. The deal announced by state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp.

The boom that turned Turkey into Europe’s fastest-growing economy may be imperiled by the debt crisis in neighboring Greece, the continent’s worst performer, Bloomberg reported. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed Turkey’s 11 percent first-quarter expansion as “magnificent” on June 30. It hasn’t prevented the lira from sliding to a two-year low, as the country’s trade deficit widens on surging demand for imports. Turkey needs increasing flows of cash to finance the gap -- just as investors take alarm at the risk of default in Greece, where output shrank 5.5 percent.

National has attacked Labour’s tax plan, saying it would leave a huge hole in New Zealand taxpayers’ finances over the next 15 years and add $18.5 billion dollars to net Crown debt, The National Business Review reported. Labour recently announced its plan to introduce a Capital Gains Tax and hike the top tax rate to 39% while taking GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and making the first $5000 of income tax-free.

The teetering retail empire Austexx, one-time owners of the Direct Factory Outlet shopping centre in Sydney, is again in crisis with receivers called in to take control of its Spencer Street property in Melbourne over a debt of up to $360 million, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. In another hammer blow for the troubled group, the financier BOS International appointed Craig Shepard and Leanne Chesser of KordaMentha receivers over two companies that own the struggling shopping centre above Southern Cross station.

When China announced a flagship program to make its currency more international in the summer of 2009, it cited "the growing call" from Chinese trading partners to use the yuan in cross-border transactions. More than a year later, the People's Bank of China touted the program as a "breakthrough," citing a surge in the amount of trade in the currency. Not everything went according to plan, The Wall Street Journal reported.

China has resumed drafting a bankruptcy law for banks, an effort that had been suspended during the global financial crisis, the news service Caixin reported on Thursday. China's banking regulator is in the preliminary stages of drafting such a law and is studying legislation in developed countries, Caixin quoted a source at the China Banking Regulatory Commission as saying, Reuters reported.

The Bank of Korea (BOK) kept the country’s policy rate unchanged at 3.25 percent despite high inflation, as the heightened uncertainty surrounding European financial troubles dissuaded rate setters from hiking, The Korea Times reported. The decision by the central bank’s monetary policy committee Thursday had been widely expected and BOK Governor Kim Choong-soo warned against raising interest rates too quickly, insisting that the country has already suffered the worst of the inflationary pressures.