Asia Pacific

India plans to start conducting twice-yearly stress tests on its banks, following in the footsteps of financial regulators in the US and Europe, the Financial Times reported. The Reserve Bank of India said on Tuesday that it had conducted rudimentary stress tests during the global financial crisis to check credit and interest rate risk. The bank said it would undertake more sophisticated tests in the future to build confidence in the country’s banking system.

Christchurch developer David Henderson has been granted a stay to fight a court order to liquidate his flagship company, Property Ventures, BusinessDay.co.nz reported. The company, of which Henderson is a director, owes Inland Revenue at least $88,734 in tax, which it failed to pay between September 2008 and February 2010.

According to Chinese officials Monday, Chinese banks have encountered high default risks on part of loans they have lent to local governments across the country, the Global Times reported. China's commercial banks have identified it to be at least one-fifth of the 7,700-billion-yuan loan ($1,135 billion). Though these questionable loans not always go bad, the country's non-performing loan (NPL) ratio is almost certain to increase slightly by the end of the year, said an official from the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).

Air India's latest turnaround plan, presented to the board and unions Sunday, includes no staff cuts - the very thing critics say is required to turn around India's troubled national carrier, the Hindustan Times reported. "There is no need to cut manpower size by reducing jobs and sending people home," Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said on Sunday. He also pledged further help to Air India as it struggles to restructure its pricey debt and to pacify restive unions, which have staged two debilitating strikes since September.

The poolside villas, the beachfront location, the warm tropical air - it should be paradise. But for 240 investors in the Hilton on Fiji's Denarau Island, the past 18 months have been more like purgatory. Some forced to mortgagee sale would probably describe it as hell, The New Zealand Herald reported. Now the trouble in paradise has escalated to the point where owners are about to put padlocks on their villas, potentially disrupting the holiday plans of hundreds at the peak of Fiji's tourism season.

Trade finisher Fastfold will be "a force to be reckoned with" after being brought out of receivership by new owners, ProPrint reported. Grant Allen, manager of the Auckland-based firm, said the response from clients since Fastfold's re-opening had given strong reason to believe the company had "a bright future". "The economy is slowly starting to come out of its recession. So, if you can get in on the ground floor now, you have a strong chance of doing well," added Allen.

Dubai's debt-laden company Dubai World said after meeting creditors on Thursday that it will complete restructuring its remaining debts "over the coming months," Agence France-Presse reported.

The number of bankruptcies recorded against debt managed by collection agency Baycorp has fallen sharply since the introduction of the no assets procedure (NAP) last year, The National Business Review reported. At the same time, the amount of legal action pursued by Baycorp in an effort to recover money owed to creditors has risen. The agency today said nearly 1300 bankruptcies were recorded against debt it managed in the first half of this year. Last year there were 6000.

PCCW and its chairman's privately owned fund plan to rescue debt-laden Vivacom, Bulgaria's biggest fixed-line operator, by jointly investing €180 million ($232 million) in return for a 51 percent stake, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. PCCW executive director Alex Arena met Vivacom's senior lenders on June 22 to discuss the matter, the South China Morning Post reported, citing people with direct knowledge of the meeting. It was unclear how much of the investment would come from PCCW, the paper said.

Almatis Group said it has lined up $592 million to fund a potential restructuring plan that would see it exit bankruptcy under the ownership of Dubai International Capital, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In court papers filed Monday, the aluminum company said it expects to ask the bankruptcy court shortly for permission to strike a deal with various firms that are willing to back the Chapter 11 plan of reorganization that current Almatis owner Dubai International Capital wants to sponsor.