A steelworks project owned by tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has been ordered into administration by the South Australian government after his GFG Alliance failed to pay royalties, Bloomberg News reported. The South Australian government “has been in receipt of advice from our steel taskforce that the owner of the steelworks’ financial position wasn’t just deteriorating, it was likely to continue deteriorating,” the state’s premier, Peter Malinauskas, told reporters in Adelaide on Wednesday.

The Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates for the first time since 2020 on Tuesday, joining its international counterparts in the global easing cycle and opening the door for the immediate calling of a federal election, which must be held by mid-May. The central bank announced a 25-basis-point reduction in the official cash rate to 4.10%, growing in confidence that inflation has been tamed after a three-year battle to bring it down from a four-decade high. Still, the decision to ease was a cautious one, and RBA Gov.

Japan's exports rose for a fourth consecutive month in January led by auto shipments to the United States, but if U.S. President Donald Trump goes through with a plan to impose hefty car tariffs, a sharp drop-off is likely, Reuters reported. The solid trade report came after Japan's GDP data released on Monday showed the economy grew faster than expected in the October-December quarter, strengthening the case for the central bank to continue raising interest rates.

Indonesia’s central bank hit the pause button again, holding rates steady after a surprise cut last month as it monitors currency headwinds and rising external risks, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank Indonesia kept its benchmark seven-day reverse repo rate at 5.75% on Wednesday, in a decision analysts had expected to be a close one. Five out of seven economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a hold, while two had projected a 25-basis-point cut.

China is expected to leave its benchmark lending rates unchanged on Thursday, a Reuters poll showed, as authorities walk a fine line between prioritising financial stability and providing more stimulus at a time when Beijing is facing fresh trade tensions. The central bank has adopted a cautious approach in recent cash injection despite a shift to an "appropriately loose" monetary policy stance this year, as yuan weakness and narrowing net profit margins at lenders limit its easing efforts.

Lenders continue to take deeper haircuts/losses from the insolvency and bankruptcy process which has from day-one been plagued by ordinate delays due to frequent adjournments of hearings which is largely blamed on the collusion between ex-promoters and resolution professionals. As a result, the average haircut that lenders are forced to take hovers around 70% as of the December quarter when overall recovery stood at 31.4%, the New Indian Express reported.

Five years after Thai Airways International Pcl filed for bankruptcy protection, the state-controlled carrier’s court-appointed debt administrator Piyasvasti Amranand is planning an aggressive international expansion, Bloomberg News reported. Called out of semi-retirement in 2020 by Thailand’s then-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, Piyasvasti was asked to take the controls of the airline and devise a rescue after the carrier had posted losses every year from 2013.

Hawkish comments from the Bank of Japan and sticky inflation are lifting bond yields to multi-year highs and pushing forward rate hike expectations, shaking long-held views that rates would not rise much in the historically deflation-prone economy, Reuters reported. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities said on Monday that it now expects the BOJ to raise interest rates to 0.75% in July from 0.5% currently, instead of in October-December.