A week after India barred lenders from investing in alternative investment funds that hold stakes in their borrowers, the market is counting the cost, Bloomberg News reported. The Reserve Bank of India said the move is designed to prevent an unstable build up of assets in the country’s financial system. But, lawyers and analysts say alternative investment fund managers could see costs ramp up and the rules will make it harder to raise cash in the future. “This is a sledge hammer to the industry,” said Vinod Joseph, partner at Economic Laws Practice, a legal firm.

Japan’s trucking industry is a crucial cog in one of the world’s largest economies, and it is the lifeblood of the Japanese culture of ultra-convenience. But it, and its drivers, are under immense strain, the New York Times reported. To improve job conditions and make the work more appealing, the government is moving to cap overtime for the first time next year, easing the punishing hours that have long defined trucking in Japan. Addressing that problem, however, will create others — potentially disrupting the nation’s entire logistics system.

China's November industrial profits posted double-digit gains as overall manufacturing improved, although soft demand continued to constrain business growth expectations, emboldening calls for more macro policy support, Reuters reported. The 29.5% profit rise came on top of a 2.7% increase in October and alongside a pickup in industrial output in November, although other sectors of the world's second-largest economy still missed forecasts.

Chinese assets have had a terrible year—but China’s currency is gaining ground as an international payments option, the Wall Street Journal reported. The yuan’s status as a global currency still faces a huge obstacle in the form of China’s own capital controls. Even so, rising willingness to conduct trade in yuan could help insulate China’s economy, at least to an extent, in the event sanctions were imposed in a hypothetical future conflict with the West.

He may be headed to prison next year after pleading guilty to U.S. criminal charges in November, yet 2023 held a silver lining for former Binance Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao: His estimated wealth ballooned by almost $25 billion this year, Bloomberg News reported. Toward the end of a year when Bitcoin rebounded more than 160% following a market collapse in 2022, Zhao tops a list of crypto entrepreneurs who saw their estimated net worth surge in 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Coinbase Global Inc.

China's top planning body said on Saturday it had identified a second batch of public investment projects, including flood control and disaster relief programmes, under a bond issuance and investment plan announced in October to boost the economy, Reuters reported. With the latest tranche, China has now earmarked more than 800 billion yuan of its 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion) in additional government bond issuance in the fourth quarter, as it focuses on fiscal steps to shore up the flagging economy.

The rise in Japan’s business service prices held steady at a three-decade high, in a development likely to fuel speculation that the Bank of Japan will inch its way toward normalizing policy in coming months, Bloomberg New reported. The country’s services producer price index, a gauge measuring the costs of a range of goods and services provided by businesses to other firms and government entities, rose 2.3% in November from a year earlier, the BOJ said Tuesday. It was the second month of 2.3% gains, the fastest since April 1992 when excluding periods when there were sales tax increases.

Major Japanese auto manufacturers will invest 150 billion baht ($4.34 billion) in Thailand over the next five years, a Thai government spokesperson said on Monday, supporting the Southeast Asian country's transition to making electric vehicles, Reuters reported. Toyota Motor and Honda Motor will invest about 50 billion baht each, while Isuzu Motors will invest 30 billion baht and Mitsubishi Motors 20 billion baht, spokesperson Chai Wacharoke said, adding this would include the production of electric pickup trucks. Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin concluded a trip to Japan last week.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda pointed out some positive potential aspects of having higher interest rates under normal economic conditions while also reiterating his pledge to continue with monetary easing patiently in the pursuit of stable inflation, Bloomberg News reported. “The most obvious benefit of a slightly positive inflation rate is larger room for monetary policy responses to an economic downturn,” Ueda said in a speech Monday at a conference hosted by the Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, in Tokyo.

Stonepeak Partners entered into an agreement to invest in AA Ltd., the breakdown coverage firm said in a statement, Bloomberg News reported. The alternative investment firm will become a minority shareholder of AA, according to the statement Saturday. AA didn’t disclose the size of the investment. Sky News earlier reported Stonepeak was nearing a £450 million ($572 million) investment into AA, which is owned by private equity firms TowerBrook and Warburg Pincus.