Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda kept investors in the dark over when he will scrap the world’s last negative interest rate while leaving little doubt that a move is in the pipeline, Bloomberg News reported. The BOJ maintained its -0.1% short-term rate and kept its yield curve control parameters intact Tuesday. It also updated its price and growth forecasts with no overall change to the picture of an economy heading slowly toward its first rate hike since 2007.

Thailand's central bank chief, under fire from the prime minister for not cutting rates, said slower-than-expected economic growth was not a crisis as portrayed by the government, nor would it be revived by its quick-hit stimulus measures, Reuters reported. The Bank of Thailand's current policy rate is broadly neutral, Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput told Reuters on Tuesday ahead of the central bank's next rate meeting on Feb. 7, adding that the country was not facing a deflationary situation.

An Australian regulator is reviewing how pension funds value unlisted assets, ranging from private equity to office towers, as part of a long-term push to limit risks within the illiquid holdings popular in the A$2.5 trillion ($1.7 trillion) sector, Reuters reported. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) requested information from multiple pension funds in late 2023 as part of the review into unlisted asset valuation governance, according to a previously unreported November 2023 letter seen by Reuters.

Terraform Labs, the company behind the stablecoin TerraUSD, which collapsed and roiled cryptocurrency markets in 2022, filed for chapter 11 protection, according to court papers filed on Sunday, Reuters reported. Singapore-based Terraform Labs, in a filing with the bankruptcy court in Delaware, listed assets and liabilities in the range of $100-$500 million. Terraform Labs said it would meet all financial obligations to employees and vendors during the Chapter 11 case without requiring additional financing. It also plans to continue Web3 offerings expansion.

Premier Li Qiang called for more effective measures to stabilize China’s slumping stock market after the mainland’s benchmark CSI 300 hit a five-year low on Monday, Bloomberg News reported. Chinese stocks have sold off for most of the past year. The factors behind the drop range from the protracted crisis in the housing market to persistent deflationary pressures in the wider economy. Beijing’s policy response, meanwhile, has failed to buttress sentiment among investors hoping for even easier monetary conditions or a big lift in fiscal stimulus.

The number of foreclosed homes in China rose 43% year-on-year in 2023, according to a private survey on Monday, highlighting a worrying trend of rising mortgage delinquencies amid a sustained property market slump and a patchy economic recovery, Reuters reported. The number of foreclosed homes up for auction stood at 389,000 units last year, said China Index Academy, a major independent real estate research firm. A total of 99,000 units worth a combined 150 billion yuan ($20.84 billion) were successfully sold at auctions, the firm said.

South Korea will take steps to make its financial markets more investor friendly and attractive to foreigners, the financial regulator said on Monday, Reuters reported. The comments by vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), Kim So-young, came at a meeting with foreign financial firms in Seoul to discuss ways of helping them expand business, in the wake of November's ban on short-selling. "The government will make various efforts to globalise the financial industry, especially to build a more favourable environment for foreign financial firms," Kim said.

One in six Japanese companies have become “zombie” firms unable to keep up with debt payments from profits alone, putting them in a vulnerable position should the central bank raise interest rates this year, as is widely expected, Bloomberg News reported. The number of zombie companies hit 251,000 or 17% of the total number in the 12 months to March, jumping almost a third from the previous year, according to a report by Teikoku Databank on Friday. The number was the highest since 2011, when Japan’s economy was battered by an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, the firm said.

Debt-stricken Sri Lanka’s economic reform program is yielding the first signs of recovery, but the improvements still need to translate into improved living conditions for its people, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Sri Lanka has been struggling with an economic crisis since declaring bankruptcy in April 2022 with more than $83 billion in debt, more than half of it to foreign creditors. The crisis caused severe shortages of food, fuel and other necessities. Strident public protests led to the ouster of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The rupture of one of the world's busiest shipping routes has exposed the vulnerability of China's export-reliant economy to supply snarls and external demand shocks, Reuters reported. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Premier Li Qiang emphasised the need to keep global supply chains "stable and smooth", without referring specifically to the Red Sea.