An India government investigation found lapses in the corporate governance of Byju’s, but cleared the struggling online-education startup of financial fraud, the Economic Times of India reported. The yearlong probe by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs found no evidence of wrongdoing such as siphoning of funds or manipulation of financial accounts, people familiar with the matter said. Still, it discovered governance shortcomings that contributed to the startup’s mounting losses, the people said, asking not to be named as the investigators’ report isn’t public yet.
Read more
Resources Per Country
- Afghanistan
- Armenia
- Australia
- Azerbaijan
- Bangladesh
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- Cook Islands
- Cyprus
- Fiji
- Georgia
- Hong Kong
- India
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Macau
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Micronesia
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- North Korea
- Pakistan
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Turkey
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu
- Vietnam
Sri Lanka reached final restructuring agreements worth $10 billion, including with an Official Creditor Committee of bilateral lenders and China’s Exim Bank, providing much-needed relief to the beleaguered island nation, Bloomberg News reported. Sri Lankan officials in Paris on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding to restructure $5.8 billion of debt, finalizing an initial agreement struck late last year with the group of official creditors led by France, India and Japan.
Read more
China’s capital city of Beijing eased homebuying requirements for downpayment and mortgages, joining the country’s other mega cities to support the real estate sector, Bloomberg News reported. Beijing reduced downpayment requirements by 10 percentage points to a minimum of 20% for first-time buyers, the capital city said in a statement Wednesday. For second homes, the threshold is lowered to a minimum of 35% for urban areas and a minimum of 30% elsewhere. The city also lowered floor on mortgage rates.
Read more
Turkey’s central bank is set to stick with an interest-rate pause that’s likely to last through much of the year or even beyond, engineering a slowdown in the economy to lower one of the world’s highest levels of inflation, Bloomberg News reported. Rate hikes that began a year ago have taken until now to become a drag on the economy, in part because more restrictive financial conditions were out of sync with the generous fiscal measures such as wage hikes enacted by the government.
Read more
The Philippine central bank kept its policy rate unchanged as it continues efforts to tame inflation and support the country’s currency, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Eli Remolona said Thursday that the central bank maintained its benchmark overnight reverse repurchase rate at 6.50%. It also held its benchmark lending rate steady at 7.00%. The country’s consumer-price index for May rose 3.9% from a year earlier, edging higher from a 3.8% increase in April. That is near the upper end of the central bank’s inflation target range of 2%-4%.
Read more
An India government investigation found lapses in the corporate governance of Byju’s, but cleared the struggling online-education startup of financial fraud, Bloomberg News reported. The yearlong probe by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs found no evidence of wrongdoing such as siphoning of funds or manipulation of financial accounts. Still, it discovered governance shortcomings that contributed to the startup’s mounting losses, the people said, asking not to be named as the investigators’ report isn’t public yet.
Read more
A liquidation case against Chinese property developer Shimao Group has been adjourned to July 31 as it has again extended a deadline for creditors in relation to a debt restructuring plan, the company said in a filing on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The adjournment was made by a Hong Kong court following a consensual application for such a move by Shimao and the petitioner - state-owned lender China Construction Bank (Asia) - the filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange said.
Read more
China discovered that officials allowed cash raised from special bonds or funds from the central government budget to be invested in subpar or halted projects, raising questions about the effectiveness of current fiscal measures in bolstering economic recovery, Bloomberg News reported. Almost 28 billion yuan ($3.9 billion) of bond funds involving 522 projects were untapped or used for purposes other than what they were approved for as of the end of 2023, the National Audit Office said in a statement released Tuesday.
Read more
India’s economic growth is inching toward 8% on a sustained manner, but it is essential to keep inflation under check, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported. “India is at the threshold of a major structural shift in its growth trajectory,” Das said in his address to the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We are moving toward annual growth rate of 8%,” he said. The economy grew at an average 8.3% in the past three years and in 2023-24 contributed 18.5% to global growth, Das added.
Read more
Higher interest rates have tightened financial conditions across Australia’s economy, but the pain is being felt differently between households and business, according to Chris Kent, assistant governor at the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a speech delivered to a banking conference in Melbourne, Kent added that while demand is rebalancing in the economy, the central bank still has a need to remain vigilant against the danger that inflation gathers renewed momentum over coming months.
Read more