Global ratings agency Fitch said today that it plans to withdraw all the ratings on China's Country Garden Services Holding on or about Dec. 12 for commercial reasons, Reuters reported. "Fitch believes that Country Garden Services investors benefit from increased rating coverage by Fitch and is providing approximately 30 days' notice to the market of the rating withdrawal," the ratings agency said in a statement on Monday. Fitch had downgraded Country Garden Services to BB+ and placed its rating on negative watch last week.

China will probably add more cash into the financial system this week as the largest amount of policy loans in a year come due. Some market watchers also expect a near-term reduction in banks’ reserve requirement ratio, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China will offer 950 billion yuan ($130 billion) through the medium-term lending facility Wednesday, according to the median estimate of 10 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. That would exceed the 850 billion yuan maturing this month. Most economists expect the one-year policy interest rate to remain unchanged at 2.5%.

Sri Lanka’s president boosted government workers’ pay and increased state pensions, seeking to shore up support before next year’s election as the economy emerges from its worst crisis in seven decades, Bloomberg News reported. Tax revenue is expected to increase more than 47% next year, President Ranil Wickremesinghe outlined in his budget speech in Colombo on Monday, after the government recently hiked the value-added tax rate and it clamps down on tax evasion. Borrowing will surge in order to recapitalize banks and pay off foreign debt, he said.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin defended a controversial plan to borrow billions of dollars to fund a cash handout program, saying Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy is in a crisis and needed a stimulus to end a cycle of low single-digit growth, Bloomberg News reported. Srettha’s administration last week unveiled plans to distribute 10,000 baht ($277) each to about 50 million Thais as a one-time measure to stimulate consumption and spur business activities.

The pace of gains in Japan’s producer prices decelerated more than expected in October to the weakest in over two years, supporting the Bank of Japan’s view that inflation is cooling, Bloomberg News reported. A measure of input prices for Japanese firms rose 0.8% from a year earlier, the slowest pace of growth since gains resumed in March 2021, the Bank of Japan reported Monday. The data compared with economists’ expectations of a 0.9% increase year-on-year. From the prior month, prices fell 0.4%, compared to the consensus view of a 0% change.

China's embattled Country Garden is aiming to pull together a tentative plan to restructure its offshore debt by the end of this year, Reuters reported. The nation's biggest private property developer, which missed a coupon payment in October triggering default terms, then aims to start formal negotiations with offshore bondholders by February or March next year. They added the firm expects to inform key bondholders of its cash flow projections by the year's end, as part of the basis for the tentative restructuring plan. The sources declined to be identified as the matter was confidential.

After a major default, investor attention usually turns to the potential payout from credit default swaps, a type of security that acts as insurance against bankruptcy. But when one of China’s biggest property developers missed a coupon on its bonds late last month, few bothered to check whether there would be any money up for grabs, Bloomberg News reported. That’s because China’s CDS market is much less developed than in most major economies, meaning that many of the investors that bought Country Garden Holdings Ltd’s $10 billion of dollar bonds did so without hedging against default.

he Reserve Bank of Australia sharply revised up its forecasts for core inflation in the near term and warned that inflation pressures are cooling at a slower pace than anticipated against the backdrop of an economy that is proving more resilient than expected, the Wall Street Journal reported. Trimmed mean inflation, which is central to policy decisions at the RBA, is now expected to be running at 4.0% on-year by mid-2024, up from a forecast of 3.25% on-year in August.

JKN Global Group Pcl, a Thai media company that owns the Miss Universe beauty-pageant brand, has petitioned for debt rehabilitation as it seeks to solve a liquidity crunch, Bloomberg News reported. JKN submitted the business rehabilitation request with Thailand’s Central Bankruptcy Court on Wednesday, it said in an exchange filing. The company petitioned to adjust interest rates on existing debt and extend its debt repayment period, and proposed itself as a planner for the process.

China slipped back into deflation in October after a brief reprieve, highlighting how hard it is for Beijing to reinvigorate domestic demand in the world’s second-largest economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. In contrast to the U.S. and many advanced economies where taming inflation remains a high priority for central banks, China has struggled to revive inflation through most parts of the year—the latest evidence that a string of stimulus measures so far have failed to boost consumer confidence in the midst of a drawn-out property downturn.