The Select Committee appointed to investigate Sri Lanka's bankruptcy will meet for the first time on Tuesday (18) in Parliament, Newsfirst reported. The meeting will focus on the committee's future course of action, Chair of the committee SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam said. They will also discuss the names of those who will first be summoned before the committee. In the meantime, SJB General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara will not be part of the committee. The SJB has decided to appoint an alternative committee instead.

SJB MP Harshana Rajakaruna said in Parliament yesterday that all SJB MPs will resign from the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) appointed to investigate the country’s bankruptcy, the Daily News reported. The MP said in a special statement in Parliament that the Speaker will be informed in writing in this regard. He said that it is very unfair to appoint the Secretary General of the same party that bankrupted the country as the chairman of the Select Committee while the Opposition has requested the chairmanship.

Whatever is driving Wall Street higher — the finishing line of the Fed's rate-hiking cycle, a falling dollar or strong earnings — it is not really filtering through to Asian markets, Reuters reported. The disconnect between Asia and the rest of the world has widened recently, and correlations between the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index and leading U.S. and global indexes are the weakest in about a month. A solid batch of second quarter earnings from some of the largest U.S. banks and financial firms on Tuesday kept the U.S. stock market juggernaut rolling.

China's economy grew at a frail pace in the second quarter as demand weakened at home and abroad, with the post-COVID momentum faltering rapidly and raising pressure on policymakers to deliver more stimulus to shore up activity, Reuters reported. Chinese authorities face a daunting task in trying to keep the economic recovery on track and putting a lid on unemployment, as any aggressive stimulus could fuel debt risks and structural distortions.

Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa yesterday announced the decision made by the Opposition to establish a committee, separate from the one formed in Parliament, to delve into the underlying causes that contributed to Sri Lanka’s state of bankruptcy, the Daily FT reported. Premadasa expressed his belief that the committee appointed by the government to investigate the country’s bankruptcy is a calculated maneuver aimed at fulfilling specific political objectives rather than impartially addressing the issue.

New Zealand inflation probably slowed markedly in the second quarter as the central bank’s aggressive interest-rate increases began to take their toll, Bloomberg reported. Consumer prices rose 5.9% from a year earlier, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 14 economists. That would be a big drop from 6.7% in the first quarter and the weakest reading since 2021. It would also undershoot the Reserve Bank’s forecast of 6.1%. Statistics New Zealand will publish the data Wednesday in Wellington.

In a rare development, the promoters of realty developer Rashmi Housing, while the company was still undergoing the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), sold 82 apartments in the company’s projects in contravention of the law. The tribunal has now set aside the sale of these 82 flats and has also imposed a fine of Rs 3 lakh on each of the promoters, the Economic Times of India reported.

Word that Uruguay was seeking a trade deal with China prompted exultation at El Álamo ranch, a lush expanse of grass punctuated by cactus and herds of cattle on the eastern plains of Uruguay, the New York Times reported. Most of the cattle are destined for buyers in China, where they confront tariffs of 12 percent — more than double the rate applied to meat from Australia, the largest exporter of beef to China. Ranchers in New Zealand, the second-largest exporter, enjoy duty-free access to China.

The resolution plan put in place to revive Jet Airways is not workable due to the Jalan-Kalrock Consortium (JKC) failing to make the promised payments to creditors, Simple Flying reported. In a recent hearing, the lawyers stated that if creditors were to see any of their promised monies, Jet Airways would need to be wound up. The JKC has already received multiple extensions since 2022, both from the creditors and the court, but they seem to have failed to keep their promise. Jet Airways was originally launched in 1993 and became a household name with premium air travel in India.

The U.S. dollar being the dominant global reserve currency has been on a slow long-term downward trend, interrupted by upticks — and now we had an uptick, when the dollar gained share, Wolf Street reported. The share of the USD as global reserve currency rose to 59.0% in the first quarter of 2023, after having dropped to 58.6% in Q4, which had been the dollar’s lowest share since 1994, according to the IMF’s recent COFER data. The U.S.