Singapore forged ahead with efforts to formulate a digital-assets hub in 2024, while rival financial center Hong Kong has struggled to gain traction, Bloomberg News reported. Singapore doled out 13 crypto licenses in 2024 to a range of crypto operators including top exchanges OKX and Upbit, as well as global heavyweights Anchorage, BitGo and GSR. That’s more than double the licenses awarded by the city-state the previous year. A similar licensing regime in Hong Kong has been slow to progress.
Resources Per Country
- Afghanistan
- Armenia
- Australia
- Azerbaijan
- Bangladesh
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- Cook Islands
- Cyprus
- Fiji
- Georgia
- Hong Kong
- India
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Macau
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Micronesia
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- North Korea
- Pakistan
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Turkey
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu
- Vietnam
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Chinese authorities have agreed to issue 3 trillion yuan ($411 billion) worth of special treasury bonds next year, two sources said, which would be the highest on record, as Beijing ramps up fiscal stimulus to revive a faltering economy, Reuters reported. The plan for 2025 sovereign debt issuance would be a sharp increase from this year's 1 trillion yuan and comes as Beijing moves to soften the blow from an expected increase in U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports when Donald Trump takes office in January.
Expectations of a Turkish central bank rate cut strengthened on Wednesday after a less-than-requested minimum wage hike, economists said, as it showed the government's determination to reach disinflation targets, Reuters reported. The 30% rise will test the government's efforts to fight years of chronic high inflation as it could pressure prices. Turkey's net monthly minimum wage will be 22,104 Turkish lira ($627) in 2025. The government said the level was set to maintain fiscal discipline and continue the fight against inflation. The workers union had requested an increase of around 70%.
Personal debt is overwhelming an increasing number of Japanese as higher interest rates and the rising cost of living bite, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer loans are rising at the highest rate in 16 years. Household borrowing exceeded incomes for the first time last year. And government officials are worried that many people accustomed to rock-bottom rates will struggle with their mounting loans. While Japan is by no means alone in confronting a debt problem, salaries are the lowest of Group-of-Seven countries, and the central bank is raising borrowing costs while its peers cut them.
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Scandal-hit Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad said on Monday it has filed a legal claim of more than $1 billion against corporate services provider Amicorp Group and its CEO, alleging the firm knowingly facilitated over $7 billion in fraudulent transactions, Reuters reported.
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A group of Indian lenders has asked the central bank to approve a new benchmark for overnight indexed swaps, Bloomberg News reported. The banks want the swaps to reference the newly-proposed Secured Overnight Rupee Rate (SORR) instead of the prevailing Mumbai Interbank Outright Rate (MIBOR). The move is intended to improve price discovery in the interest-rate swap market, an opaque but important part of the financial system that helps banks and corporations manage their risks. An industry body reached out to banks this month to start work on the formulation of the SORR, the people said.
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Singapore's key consumer price gauge rose 1.9% in November on a yearly basis, lower than economists' forecasts and the smallest rise in nearly three years, official data showed on Monday, Reuters reported. It was the smallest rise since November 2021, when it climbed by 1.6%. Headline inflation was 1.6% in annual terms in November. The Monetary Authority of Singapore had forecast core inflation to be around 2% in the fourth quarter.
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Honda and Nissan said that they planned to merge in 2026, a move Honda’s chief executive said wasn’t a rescue of troubled Nissan but a recognition that developing new technologies was too hard to do alone, the Wall Street Journal reported. The companies said that they intended to create an automaker that, combined with Nissan partner Mitsubishi Motors, would be the third-largest carmaker in the world, after Toyota and Volkswagen, with more than eight million vehicles sold annually.
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Indonesia’s Supreme Court has upheld the bankruptcy ruling on distressed textile company PT Sri Rejeki Isman, according to people familiar with the decision, risking layoffs for tens of thousands of its employees, Bloomberg News reported. The court on Wednesday rejected the appeal from Sritex - as the company is more commonly known - to overturn a lower court ruling in October that declared the company bankrupt. The ruling will raise uncertainties for the company’s roughly 50,000 employees.
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The Supreme Court on Friday restored China Development Bank, Exim Bank of China, Asset Care and Reconstruction Enterprises and others as financial creditors in the insolvency process of Reliance Infratel Ltd, which is now acquired by Reliance Project & Property Management Services, a subsidiary of Reliance Jio Infocomm, the Economic Times of India reported.
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