An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission has opened discussions with Islamabad on a new loan programme, a Pakistan finance ministry statement said on Monday, Reuters reported. The mission chief, Nathan Porter, met Pakistan's Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb to "kick-start the discussions on further engagement with the fund." Aurangzeb informed the team of improvements in the macro-economic indicators over the course of the standby arrangement and underscored the government's commitment to continue and expand the reform agenda, the ministry said.

Chinese property developer Country Garden made payments on two onshore bonds within a grace period, avoiding default days after the company had said it might turn to a state guarantor for help, the Wall Street Journal reported. The heavily indebted property developer said Saturday that it made interest payments totaling about 65.95 billion yuan ($9.13 billion) on two onshore bonds that had been due last week. Country Garden said that through the efforts of “all parties, the issuer actively raised funds and revitalized the mortgage assets.” It didn’t elaborate.

Two more Chinese cities have unveiled plans to buy up unsold, unfinished or old housing, coming as Beijing shifts its focus to absorbing excess apartment supply as a way to resolve the country’s ongoing property crisis, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, on Saturday said it would help renovate or buy housing inventories and turn them into public housing.

China's finance ministry plans to start raising 1 trillion yuan ($138 billion) in long-awaited, long-term special treasury bonds this week to raise funds it will use to stimulate key sectors of its flagging economy. The finance ministry confirmed what four sources had told Reuters earlier on Monday that the 1 trillion yuan ($138.23 billion) of special government bonds would have tenors of 20 to 50 years and issuance will begin on May 17.

China is taking the rare step of sharply increasing fares for riders on four major bullet train lines, in its broadest move to address rising costs and heavy debts since construction of the system began nearly two decades ago, the New York Times reported. The higher prices for train tickets are part of a push to raise prices for public services. Earlier this year, water and natural gas bills started going up in some cities. Public services in China are heavily subsidized by local governments.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has admitted an insolvency resolution application against Indira Container Terminal Pvt Ltd and has appointed Dinesh Kumar Aggarwal as interim resolution professional of the company, the Economic Times of India reported. Mumbai-based Indira Container Terminal (ICTPL) is a joint venture between listed infra firm AJR Infra And Tolling Ltd (erstwhile Gammon Infrastructure Projects Ltd) and Spanish port operation and logistic behemoth Noatum Ports Sociedad Limitada (formerly Dragados SPL).

Promoters of distressed engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company Gayatri Projects (GPL) made a nearly ₹750 crore offer to creditors seeking to settle dues worth ₹9,115 crore after banks filed for the company's liquidation, the Economic Times of India reported. However, a successful outcome is far from easy as any settlement with promoters under Section 12A of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) needs approval from 90% of lenders.

Air Vanuatu announced on Thursday that the airline had cancelled international flights for four days and was considering bankruptcy protection for the South Pacific state-owned carrier, the Associated Press reported. It said that international flights were cancelled until Sunday and flights after that day were “under review.” “The Vanuatu government is now considering placing Air Vanuatu into voluntary administration,” a statement said, referring to a local equivalent of a U.S. chapter 11 bankruptcy.

A struggling property developer in southern China has become the litmus test for investors trying to answer that question, the Wall Street Journal reported. China Vanke is one of the biggest survivors of the property downturn, which has pushed real-estate companies to default on $140 billion of dollar bonds, according to S&P Global Ratings. It has also left millions of homes unfinished and fueled widespread alarm about a slump in the world’s second-largest economy.

China Construction Bank Corp., the nation’s third-largest commercial lender, was accused in a US lawsuit of enabling a massive fraud in the reinsurance industry that left companies with “monumental losses” and sinking stock prices, Bloomberg News reported. The bank allowed employees to conspire with Israeli insurance startup Vesttoo Ltd. to sell reinsurance policies that weren’t real, according to a complaint filed late Thursday by the Porch Group in Manhattan federal court.