Japan may see corporate bankruptcy cases hit an 11-year high in the fiscal year to March as some firms go under due to a lack of workers, a think tank survey showed, a sign of the strain intensifying job shortages are inflicting on the economy, Reuters reported. The survey highlights the cost felt by some firms from the Bank of Japan’s past efforts to reflate growth with easy monetary policy enough to tighten the job market and lift wages.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has directed that the resolution plans to acquire Jaiprakash Associates through the insolvency process should be invited for the entire company as a going concern and not by dividing its different business verticals, the Hindustan Times reported.

Chinese tariffs as high as 15% on a range of US agricultural goods take effect Monday, potentially exacerbating a trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies, Bloomberg News reported. The levies announced last week are far-reaching, touching commodities from beef and poultry to grains. Along with the tariffs, Beijing also said it would completely suspend soybean imports from three US entities and also halted purchases of American logs. Beijing’s move came after the Trump administration doubled a blanket tariff on all Chinese exports.

China’s consumer inflation dropped far more than expected to fall below zero for the first time in 13 months, an assessment skewed by seasonal distortions but also a sign of deflationary pressures persisting in the economy, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index declined 0.7% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Sunday, compared with a 0.5% gain in the previous month. That was lower than all but one forecast in a Bloomberg survey of analysts, whose median estimate was for a 0.4% drop.

Even as the amendments to be Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) are getting delayed, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has made a slew of regulatory changes in the past 18 months to enhance the efficiency of the resolution process, FinancialExpress.com reported. “Until amendments to the IBC are carried out, it’s only logical for the IBBI to make regulatory changes,” an official source told FE. Going forward too, the IBBI will be making significant changes to regulations to improve the efficiency, transparency, and effectiveness of the resolution process, the person added.

China's Evergrande Property Services Group said on Friday that it expects to record a decrease of up to 37% in its annual profit for the year ended December 31, 2024, due to legal expenses related to a deposit pledge, among other reasons, Reuters reported. In early January, a Guangzhou city court ordered the firm's parent China Evergrande to repay pledge guarantees on deposit certificates totalling 13.4 billion yuan ($1.85 billion).

On the night of Feb. 21, Ben Zhou, the chief executive of the cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, logged on to his computer to approve what appeared to be a routine transaction. His company was moving a large amount of Ether, a popular digital currency, from one account to another. Thirty minutes later, Mr. Zhou got a call from Bybit’s chief financial officer. In a trembling voice, the executive told Mr. Zhou that their system had been hacked, according to a New York Times analysis. “All of the Ethereum is gone,” he said. When Mr.

China submitted a revised request for dispute settlement consultations with the United States to address new U.S. tariffs applied on goods originating in China, the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The Trump administration's latest tariff hike on Chinese imports has heightened fears of a renewed trade war between the U.S. and China, the world's two largest economies. China's revised request comes after an extra 10% duty on Chinese goods took effect Tuesday, adding to the 10% tariff imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on February 4.

Malaysia’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged as expected, citing a balanced outlook on growth and inflation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank Negara Malaysia on Thursday maintained its overnight policy rate at 3.00%, where it has been since May 2023. “At the current OPR level, the monetary policy stance remains supportive of the economy and is consistent with the current assessment of inflation and growth prospects,” Bank Negara said.

Turkey lowered its benchmark one-week repo rate from 45% to 42.5% on Thursday, EuroNews.com reported. The decision came after official data showed annual inflation dipping below 40% for the first time in nearly two years. In a statement released after the committee meeting, the bank said it would review inflation trends and adjust rates cautiously in upcoming policy meetings. “While inflation expectations and pricing behaviour tend to improve, they continue to pose risks to the disinflation process,” the bank said.