The Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut interest rates further Wednesday in a bid to stoke an economic recovery that some economists are warning is under threat, the Wall Street Journal reported. The official cash rate was cut by 25 basis points to 3.25%, the latest in a string of cuts that started in mid-2024. In making its decision, the RBNZ highlighted growing concerns about the global growth outlook amid a destabilizing trade war between the world’s largest economies. “The recently announced increases in global trade barriers weaken the outlook for global economic activity.

The world's poorest nations face a "tidal wave of debt" as repayments to China hit record highs in 2025, an Australian think tank warned in a new report Tuesday, the Japan Times reported. China's Belt and Road initiative lending spree of the 2010s has paid for shipping ports, railways, roads and more from the deserts of Africa to the tropical South Pacific. But new lending is drying up, according to Australia's Lowy Institute, and is now outweighed by the debts that developing countries must pay back.

Dunar Foods Ltd, an accused in the 2016 NSEL scam case involving alleged cheating and siphoning of funds, has been discharged from criminal proceedings, the Times of India reported. The court's decision was based on Section 32A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which grants immunity to corporate debtors once a resolution plan is approved and management changes hands.

China's central bank eased monetary policy last week to limit damage from the trade war with Washington. On Friday, it lowered the ceiling for deposit rates to offset margin pressure on banks and prompt savers to spend or invest more. But successive cuts to deposit rates in recent years have failed to curb explosive growth in Chinese household savings, intensifying concerns over the side-effects that lower returns have on the country's consumers, who tend to build their own safety net, Reuters reported.

Japan has joined a growing list of nations, including Spain and Canada, that are assembling aid plans to help blunt the domestic impact of President Trump’s tariffs, the New York Times reported. On Tuesday, Japan approved a $6.3 billion spending package to “fully support” businesses and households adversely affected by the tariffs, Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said in a briefing. The funds will bolster the finances of small and medium-sized businesses and subsidize household energy costs, he said.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang rallied a group of Southeast Asian and Gulf states to deepen cooperation and touted his country’s economic strength, as Beijing ramps up its charm offensive abroad to counter US efforts to isolate the economy, Bloomberg News reported. “We should firmly expand regional opening up and develop a big market,” Li said at a meeting with leaders from Southeast Asia and the Middle East in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

The Bank of Japan must be vigilant to the risk rising food prices could push up underlying inflation that is already near its 2% target, Governor Kazuo Ueda said, signaling the central bank's readiness to continue its rate hikes, Reuters reported. The BOJ keeps interest rates low as inflation expectations, or the public's perception on future price moves, stand between 1.5% and 2% - the highest in 30 years though still below its 2% target, Ueda said in a speech at a BOJ-hosted conference.

Reserve Bank of India is "examining" the licensing framework for banks to align it with the evolving needs of the economy and is also reviewing the role of lenders in distributing insurance products, amid complaints of mis-selling, the Times of India reported.

Prosecutors investigating the so-called Homeplus scandal have imposed a travel ban on Michael ByungJu Kim, chairman of MBK Partners and the alleged central figure in the case, the Korea Joongang Daily reported. According to legal sources on Monday, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s Anti-Corruption Investigation Division recently requested the Ministry of Justice to bar Kim, a U.S. citizen, from leaving Korea.

The storm clouds for China were gathering when leader Xi Jinping convened the country’s top scientists at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in May 2018. The U.S. was beginning to clamp down on selling technology to China, with more restrictions on the way, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. China must not be forced to beg others for technology, Xi said. Only through self-reliance “can we fundamentally safeguard national economic security,” he said. Since then, China has raced ahead in many strategic sectors—and in some cases is catching up with the U.S.