India’s economy picked up speed in the most recent quarter as manufacturing and private consumption continued to show resilience, the Wall Street Journal reported. Official data on Friday showed that India’s economy grew 7.4% in January-March, accelerating from 6.2% in the prior quarter and marking its best quarterly growth in a year. That topped the median estimate for 6.8% growth compiled in a Wall Street Journal poll of economists and came after an unexpectedly sharp slowdown in the July-September quarter fanned concerns that the economy was losing steam.

Australian retail sales slipped unexpectedly in April as warm weather hit spending on winter clothing, data showed on Friday, while department stores suffered from a dearth of discounting events in further evidence of a cautious consumer, Reuters reported. The weakness came despite lower borrowing costs and a cooling in inflation, supporting investor wagers for a further cut in interest rates when the Reserve Bank of Australia next meets in July.

The bankruptcy regulator has amended the framework for reporting the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) to ease compliance burden without undermining effective oversight, according to a circular, the Economic Times of India reported. Under the revised reporting framework, the existing nine forms will be compressed into five by removing duplication, streamlining data requirements and leveraging technology for auto-population of information, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) said in the circular dated May 26.

After stepping back this month from an escalating and dangerous war of tariffs, the United States and China are now threatening to undermine their uneasy truce, the New York Times reported. On May 12, the countries announced after weekend meetings in Geneva that they would suspend most of their recently imposed tariffs. Since then, however, both governments have shown that they are still prepared to wield controls over critical exports as weapons against one another, with moves that are potentially even more damaging to trade and global supply chains.

Japan, which has the highest government debt among leading economies, is finding it difficult to spend like it used to, the New York Times reported. Debt-fueled public spending, enabled by low interest rates, has long been a way to address the country’s problems. Struggling farmers and emptying countrysides received generous payments from the central government. Relief aid during the Covid-19 pandemic morphed into new outlays for defense and subsidies to help consumers weather inflation.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed determination Thursday to defend rules-based, free and multilateral trade systems and work on expanding the main Asia-Pacific trade group at a time of tension over U.S. tariffs, the Associated Press reported. “High tariffs will not bring economic prosperity," Ishiba told a global forum in Tokyo. “A prosperity built on sacrifices by someone or another country will not make a strong economy.” Japan seeks to work with the U.S.

South Korea’s central bank slashed its growth outlook for the year, cutting its policy rate in a widely expected move to support the country’s sagging economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The export-led economy is facing challenges from U.S. President Trump’s sweeping tariffs and heightened tensions in global trade, while struggling with weak domestic consumption. Ending a pause in its easing cycle, the Bank of Korea lowered its benchmark seven-day repurchase rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.50% on Thursday. BOK Gov.

Fewer companies went through the insolvency process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in financial year 2025, according to the credit rating firm ICRA, the Economic Times of India reported. As per the ICRA, only 724 companies were admitted for insolvency, a sharp 28 percent drop form 1,003 in the previous year. The number of approved resolution plans also dipped slightly to 259 from 263. In the last quarter of FY2025, lenders recovered about 70 percent of the admitted claims in some cases, registering the highest levels so far, said the ICRA.

Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings Co.’s efforts to win backing for a $14.1 billion offshore restructuring are running into resistance as key bank creditors say failure to accept some of their demands would be a “deal breaker,” Bloomberg Law reported. The company, once China’s largest property developer by contracted sales, got a few months’ reprieve from its liquidation petition hearing on Monday, as High Court Judge Linda Chan decided to adjourn the case to Aug. 11.