The sudden rush to join China’s new Asian development bank by this week’s deadline, including last-minute applications by countries hardly considered Beijing’s best friends, astonished even the Chinese, the International New York Times reported. Few in Beijing had believed that Taiwan, still considered a breakaway territory by China, would want in. Same for Norway, whose relations with the Chinese have been chilly since its decision five years ago to award the Nobel Peace Prize to a dissident Chinese writer.

China will introduce on May 1 a program to insure bank deposits, the government said on Tuesday, ushering in an overhaul seen as vital for freeing up the highly protected banking sector, the International New York Times reported. Deposits of up to 500,000 renminbi, or about $81,000, will be insured under the program, which is expected to help reduce financial risks and protect the rights and interests of savers, the State Council, or cabinet, said on the government’s website.

China on Monday courted home buyers with a bigger tax break as it cut down-payment requirements for the second time in six months, stepping up a fight against sliding house prices that is imperiling the Chinese economy, the International New York Times reported. The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, said on its website that commercial banks could now lower their minimum down-payment requirement for buyers of second homes, and with outstanding mortgages, to 40 percent from 60 percent.

MPs on Monday wrapped up discussion of the fifth bill comprising the insolvency framework – a set of laws governing personal and corporate bankruptcy – hoping to put the whole package to a vote this Thursday. The fifth bill deals with the protection of primary homes, business premises and guarantors’ obligations to the principal debtor. The House aims to table the insolvency framework to the plenary for a vote by April 2, the last plenum before the Easter break. April 2 is also the date on which the foreclosures law – which the opposition has repeatedly blocked – comes into force.

Australia is considering changes to the way it taxes pension funds and targeting the tax practices of multinationals, as Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s conservatives struggle to shore up the country’s finances amid deep hostility to proposed austerity measures, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Monday, Mr. Abbott called for discussion on how an aging population was progressively shrinking income-tax receipts and urged the opposition Labor party to cooperate with reforms needed to steer Australia through the end of a mining boom that once powered the economy.

Australia plans to join an Asian infrastructure bank led by China, the government announced on Sunday, reversing an earlier decision taken at the urging of the United States not to become a member. The move made Australia the latest of a list of major American allies to sign up, the International New York Times reported. The office of Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in a statement that Australia still had concerns about the management of the bank but recognized the pressing needs for infrastructure in Asia.

Zhou Xiaochuan, China’s central bank governor, warned on Sunday that the country needed to be vigilant about signs of deflation and said policy makers were closely watching the slowing of global economic growth and declines in commodity prices, the International New York Times reported. Mr. Zhou’s comments are likely to add to concerns that China is in danger of slipping into deflation and to underline increasing nervousness among policy makers as the economy continues to lose momentum despite a series of stimulus measures. “Inflation in China is also declining.

South Korea’s government is fighting to address the dangers of the nation’s fast-rising household debt burden — even as critics accuse it of stoking the credit boom through deregulation aimed at boosting the housing market, the Financial Times reported. Economists have raised fears over the country’s heavy household debt, which has risen steadily since the late 1990s to more than 160 per cent of disposable incomes at the end of last year — one of the highest levels of any developed nation.

Japan’s drift back toward deflation, two years after launching a radical monetary policy experiment to cure the affliction, underscores the continuing difficulties in pulling the world’s third-largest economy out of its long slump, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government said Friday its most closely watched price gauge was flat in February from a year earlier, far below the 2% target that the central bank had aimed to hit by this spring. It was the lowest level since May 2013 for the consumer price index, excluding fresh food prices and the effects of a tax increase.

China’s central bank said on Wednesday that banks should step up financing support for farms in the latest bid to bolster that vulnerable sector and the overall economy, the International New York Times reported. The banking industry should “enhance the availability of financing for the agricultural sector at an affordable cost,” the central bank said in a news release. Policy makers face challenges in channeling bank loans into the cash-starved farming sector.