A Singapore oil magnate was sentenced Monday to 17.5 years in prison for fraud and forgery in a case that prosecutors said has tarnished the city-state's reputation as Asia’s leading oil trading hub, the Associated Press reported. Lim Oon Kuin was convicted in May on two counts of cheating the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC) and one of abetting forgery. The court found Lim used forged documents on two bogus oil transactions to deceive HSBC into disbursing credit totaling $111.7 million, in one of the biggest cases of trade financing fraud in Singapore.

China’s beleaguered solar industry, wracked by a glut and fierce price war, is already on the road to recovery, according to one of the country’s largest panel manufacturers, Bloomberg News reported. “We’re at a turning point,” Li Zhenguo, founder and president of Longi Green Energy Technology Co., said in an interview.

In ways big and small, Beijing’s takeover of Hong Kong’s financial sector is looking irreversible. With stunning speed, the world’s pre-eminent East-meets-West investment hub has become more Chinese as international financial institutions, corporations, and expatriates retreat, the Wall Street Journal reported. Foreign banks played major roles in one-fifth of Hong Kong’s initial public offerings this year, compared with roughly half just two years ago. Chinese banks have taken the places of Western ones as top earners in the city’s debt-capital market.

China has made a $1.3 billion bet that a new port in Peru will boost access to South America’s agricultural bounty. Cashing in on the investment may be harder than expected, Bloomberg News reported. China’s President Xi Jinping and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte officially inaugurated Chancay port during a ceremony at Peru’s presidential palace in Lima on Thursday. The move epitomizes Beijing’s ambitions to strengthen commerce with South America as the world braces for more restrictive trade measures under US President-elect Donald Trump.

Thailand is working on a raft of fresh fiscal measures to sustain an economic recovery, foster new foreign investment and lower the near-record household debt, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s top aide said, Bloomberg News reported. The economic stimulus panel chaired by the premier is set to consider the second phase of a cash handout plan and other steps at a meeting next week, according to Paetongtarn’s Secretary-General Prommin Lertsuridej. Easier rules for long-term land leasing and credit restructuring led by government banks are also on the anvil, he said.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has held that applications before the adjudicating authority for the recovery of property when there is a prohibition are non-maintainable under Section 14 (1) (d), the Economic Times of India reported. Accordingly, no owner or lessor of a property, that is occupied by or is in possession of a Corporate Debtor can recover such property from them. The aforesaid provision is an express provision in the Code and there are no exceptions from the same.

Japan's wholesale inflation accelerated in October as renewed yen falls pushed up import costs for some goods, data showed on Wednesday, complicating the central bank's decision on how soon to raise interest rates, the Japan Times reported. The corporate goods price index (CGPI), which measures the price that companies charge each other for goods and services, rose 3.4% in October from a year earlier, Bank of Japan data showed, above market forecasts for a 3.0% gain. It followed a 3.1% increase in September.