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.

Vietnam’s Shipbuilding Industry Corp., which is set to declare bankruptcy in the first quarter, missed out on a recent recovery in ship orders, with only seven currently in its order book, a yard manager says, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company, also known as SBIC, couldn’t compete with bigger rivals in China and South Korea, the manager adds. The shipbuilder’s bankruptcy is inevitable, Minister of Transport Nguyen Xuan Sang said in a meeting with employees.

New Zealand houses are selling faster as signs that interest rates may have peaked encourage more buyers to enter the market, Bloomberg News reported. The median time to sell a house in December was 36 days, Real Estate Institute of New Zealand data showed Thursday in Wellington. That’s the lowest since March 2022 and down from a peak of 60 days in February last year. House prices in New Zealand are recovering after a prolonged slump that coincided with a steep rise in mortgage interest rates.

A South Korean bankruptcy court judge has called on the government to bolster regulation in the crypto industry, claiming investors need more protection, CryptoNews.com reported. Per Newsis, the claims were made by Judge Lee Seok-jun, of the Seoul Bankruptcy Court. Lee wrote a paper on “regulations intended to protect virtual asset investors.” The paper was published in the most recent issue of the Court of Korea’s academic journal Sabeub. A slew of crypto-related legal changes come into force in July this year when the Virtual Asset User Protection Act becomes law.

China's troubled property market ended last year with the worst declines in new home prices in nearly nine years, despite government efforts to prop up the sector that was once a key driver of the world's second largest economy, Reuters reported. New home prices in December logged their steepest drop since February 2015, while property sales measured by floor area fell 23% in December from a year earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Wednesday.

China’s economic growth rate finished at one of the lowest levels in decades last year, underscoring the heavy toll that a property-sector collapse and weak consumer confidence have taken on the world’s second-largest economy despite the lifting of all Covid-19 restrictions, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product in China expanded 5.2% in the fourth quarter and for the full year in 2023, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday.

Star Wars-inspired hoverbike maker A.L.I. Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy due to mounting research and development costs and slow adoption of the next-generation vehicles, Bloomberg News reported. The filing comes less than a year after parent Aerwins Technology Inc. debuted on the Nasdaq in one of the worst SPAC mergers of all time, prompting the startup to say it was at risk as a going concern.

Sri Lanka's bankrupt government said Friday that a foreign debt restructure would be finalised by the beginning of April, after signs the economy was emerging from its worst crisis on record, AFP News reported. The island nation defaulted on its $46 billion foreign debt in 2022 after a foreign exchange wipeout left it unable to import food, fuel and other essentials. It secured a $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout last year which is conditional on a debt deal that satisfies foreign creditors.

China’s state-owned banks are tightening curbs on funding to Russian clients after the US authorized secondary sanctions on overseas financial firms that aid Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. At least two banks ordered a review of their Russian business in recent weeks, focusing on cross-border deals, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.

Cryptocurrency exchange HashKey Group said on Tuesday that it raised nearly $100 million after the completion of a Series A financing round, at a pre-money valuation exceeding $1.2 billion, Reuters reported. HashKey said that the newly raised capital will be used to strengthen its Web3 ecosystem, enhance product diversification of its licensed business in Hong Kong and support the Group's global development. Web3 is a version of the internet that operates the on blockchain technology used by crypto assets.