Credit-ratings firm Fitch Ratings says China's banks are showing early signs of asset-quality deterioration amid a torrent of lending to help fund government stimulus projects, The Wall Street Journal reported. New loans totaling 5.17 trillion yuan, or $757.5 billion, in the first four months of this year have already exceeded the 4.91 trillion yuan in loans made in all of 2008. Amid the credit surge, government officials have warned of rising risks.

Taiwan's economy contracted by a record 10.24% in the first quarter from a year earlier as Western consumers refrained from buying the island's exports, prompting the government to revise down its growth forecast for 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported. The first-quarter decline in gross domestic product--the third consecutive quarterly retreat for the export-oriented economy--exceeded the 9.05% fall expected and followed the island's revised 8.61% contraction in the fourth quarter of 2008. Taiwan, home to technology-goods producers like Acer Inc.

Sony, which has 2,500 suppliers of components and materials, is to cut the number by half in a “life-changing” effort to streamline its cumbersome procurement network and cut costs by about 500 billion yen (£3.3 billion), the Times Online reported. The move by the entertainment and electronics group marks another shift in the Japanese business environment which, over the past six months, has undergone more radical changes than at any other time in the past 20 years.

Alliance Bank, Kazakhstan’s fourth- biggest lender, is in default after missing a principal payment of more than $10 million, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said. A committee of credit swaps dealers and asset managers voted unanimously that a “failure-to-pay credit event” occurred after UBS AG asked for a ruling on May 15, ISDA said today on its Web site. The decision will trigger a settlement by auction of credit-default swaps linked to the Almaty-based lender, Bloomberg reported.

After bleeding money for years, 186 jobs have been cut at textile company Lane Walker Rudkin (LWR) as receivers try to sort out its dire financial state, The New Zealand Herald reported. LWR was last month placed in receivership and several of the company's unprofitable sites around the country have been targeted for closure or mergers. Changes involve 186 of the group's 470 staff being made redundant - 102 in Christchurch, 61 in Greytown, 19 in Pahiatua and four in Auckland. The receivers said there were no plans for redundancies at the Timaru plant.

Bankruptcy petitions in Hong Kong in April jumped 56 percent from a year earlier, totalling 1,490, as the territory struggled with economic recession, although that was lowest monthly total since January, government data showed on Friday, Reuters reported. March bankruptcies totalled 1,872, a six-year high, while bankruptcies in April a year ago amounted to 957. The latest data marked only the second time since August that bankruptcy petitions, which give an indication of future bankruptcies, had fallen from the previous month.

Greg Olliver has escaped bankruptcy after a judge signed off on a proposal that will give his creditors, owed more than $90 million, a guaranteed return of less than half a cent in the dollar, The National Business Review reported. Financier St Laurence, owed $6.5 million, had opposed the arrangement and protested over a deal in which the $7 million Olliver family mansion, against which it held security, ended up being on-sold to entities associated with Mr Olliver’s wife Sarah.

Chinese exports fell steeply in April for the sixth month in succession, suggesting the worst might not be over for the world’s third largest economy, the Financial Times reported. The total value of Chinese exports fell 22.6 per cent to $91.9 billion last month compared with the same month a year earlier--a faster rate of decline than the 17.1 per cent year-on-year drop in March. Imports fell 23 per cent from a year earlier to $78.8 billion in what some analysts said was a sign that domestic investors remained unwilling to invest in new capacity.

Sharemarket operator NZX has called on New Zealand Shareholders' Association chairman Bruce Sheppard to publicly name the nine listed companies he thinks may have defaulted on debt payments, The National Business Review reported. Many companies do not disclose the terms of their loans, known as covenants, but Mr Sheppard warned yesterday that three weeks of research revealed nine companies were probably in breach of bank covenants in 2008 and a further 11 close to being in breach.

RHJ International, a European buyout firm with holdings in the auto-parts industry, has emerged as a suitor for General Motors Corp.'s European operations, a person familiar with the matter said, adding to the list of possible buyers scrambling to strike a deal with the U.S. car maker before the end of the month, The Wall Street Journal reported. Brussels-based RHJ is considering an offer for GM operations including Adam Opel GmbH in Germany, this person said.