New Zealand’s battle with inflation had shown signs of easing before Cyclone Gabrielle wrecked homes, downed power lines and washed away roads after making landfall earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Now, officials at the South Pacific country’s central bank are assessing how the rebuilding effort could complicate their campaign to bring price pressures under control.

When China’s private real-estate developers started sliding into distress more than a year ago, the government encouraged state-owned property companies to step in and take over their ailing peers’ projects and assets, the Wall Street Journal reported. That call has gone largely unheeded—a big reason why the country’s housing market remains in the doldrums. State-backed property companies have considered and ultimately decided against acquiring a great number of projects started by private developers.

Bankers said that Turkey's central bank used $7 billion of reserves in the last two weeks to help steady the lira in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes, and reserves could remain under pressure in the weeks ahead, Reuters reported. The worst disaster in Turkey's modern history killed tens of thousands and levelled areas of the south, temporarily closing the stock exchange. But in foreign exchange (FX) markets, the lira has shed only 0.2% versus the U.S. dollar since the initial quake on Feb. 6.

The Japanese subsidiary of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX said it started allowing customers to withdraw their assets on Tuesday, a relatively quick reboot that Tokyo regulators see as the fruit of their strict crypto laws, the Wall Street Journal reported. The situation in Japan contrasts with the U.S. and other countries, where most FTX customers are a long way from getting access to their assets more than three months after the exchange’s U.S. bankruptcy filing. Japan, which was burned by the collapse of the early cryptocurrency exchange Mt.

Hong Kong outlined a plan to let retail investors trade digital tokens like Bitcoin and Ether, taking a major step toward its goal of becoming a crypto hub in a policy shift that contrasts with a crackdown in the U.S., Bloomberg News reported. Individual investors would be allowed to trade larger coins on exchanges licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission, providing safeguards such as knowledge tests, risk profiles and reasonable limits on exposure are put in place, the regulator said in a consultation paper on Monday.

A downturn in South Korea's home prices is causing pain in the country's unusual rent-free rental system that benefited landlords and tenants alike during a long surge in residential property prices, Reuters reported. In the "jeonse" scheme, tenants put up a deposit typically worth as much as 70% of the home's value, then live without paying rent for two years until the landlord returns the full amount.

Adani Transmission will announce debt refinancing plans in a few weeks, executives said on Tuesday in an investor call, Reuters reported. The company, a unit of embattled Indian conglomerate Adani Group, has no plans to raise additional debt for capital expenditure, which it plans to cover with operating cash inflows, the executives said.

The overall recovery rate in Indian insolvency cases till Q3FY23 was 30.4 per cent implying a haircut of approximately 70 per cent, the Economic Times of India reported. The cumulative recovery rate has been on a downtrend, decreasing from 43 per cent in Q1FY20 and 32.9 per cent in Q4FY22 as larger resolutions have already been executed and a significant number of liquidated cases were either BIFR cases and/or defunct with high resolution time, coupled with lower recoverable values, Care Edge said in a report.

Japan's manufacturing activity contracted at the fastest pace in 30 months in February, a business survey showed on Tuesday, in a worrying sign for the world's third-largest economy, which is facing weakening demand and struggling to tame cost pressures, Reuters reported. The au Jibun Bank flash Japan manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) fell to a seasonally adjusted 47.4 in February, from a final 48.9 in the previous month.

China said it is launching a pilot program for real estate private equity investment funds as part of efforts to promote the property industry, Bloomberg News reported. The investment scope of the funds would include residential housing, commercial property and infrastructure projects, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement Monday. Investors in the pilot products have to put in no less than 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) and would mainly be institutional investors, according to the statement. It was unclear when and where the pilot would start.