Asia Pacific

U.S.-based Glas Trust is not part of a key panel overseeing the insolvency proceedings of Indian education-technology giant Byju's, and will need to substantiate the $1 billion claim of lenders it represents, according to documents and three sources, Reuters reported. Byju's was once a darling of global investors and valued at $22 billion in 2022, but is now facing insolvency due to its dispute with U.S. lenders. The company became popular by offering online training courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its insolvency officer, Pankaj Srivastava, told Glas in a Sept.

For years, mortgages in Japan have been nearly cost free. Homeowners are now bracing for that to change, the New York Times reported. Japan’s central bank had maintained benchmark interest rates near zero since the mid-1990s. As a result, many home buyers have gotten used to paying between 0.3 and 0.4 percent for floating-rate mortgages, or just over 1 percent for longer-term, fixed-rate ones.

Australia’s commodity-rich economy recorded its weakest growth momentum since the early 1990s in the second quarter, as consumers and businesses continued to feel the impact of high interest rates, with little expectation of a reprieve from the Reserve Bank of Australia in the near term, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The economy grew 0.2% in the second quarter from the first, with annual growth running at 1.0%, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. The results were in line with market expectations.

Applications for bankruptcy rose in the first half of 2024, as did the number of people declared eventually bankrupt, the Straits Times reported. Recent Law Ministry (MinLaw) data shows that 2,334 people filed for bankruptcy in the six months to June 30, up 25 per cent on the same period in 2023, while 594 were later declared bankrupt, an increase of 11 percent. Read more. (Subscription required.)

China’s property crisis has hit local governments hard, drying up a key source of income as land sales crumble. Fiscal reform plans have sparked hope relief is on the way, but economists see little progress, the Wall Street Journal reported. Cash-strapped and indebted, regional governments are seeking alternative revenue streams to compensate for falling land and tax income. That is a worrying sign that fiscal conditions are deteriorating, analysts say, and bodes ill for China’s sputtering economy.

Hong Kong’s property downturn is taking a growing toll on New World Development Co., the firm owned by the billionaire Cheng family, Bloomberg News reported. The company said late on Friday it expects to post a loss of as much as HK$20 billion ($2.6 billion) for the financial year ended in June — its first annual loss in two decades. Its share price plunged 13% on Monday to the lowest level since 1986, when Bloomberg started tracking the data.

South Korea’s inflation slowed more than expected to the central bank’s target, opening the door for monetary officials to conduct a policy pivot as soon as next month if home prices also show signs of easing, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices advanced 2% in August from a year earlier, moderating from a 2.6% clip in July, the statistics office reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast the pace of price growth would ease to 2.1%. The deceleration was amplified somewhat by comparisons with last year, when price growth surged on higher energy costs.