Chinese officials have vowed to carry out a slew of government policies to stimulate growth following Premier Li Keqiang’s recent call to avoid a Covid-fueled economic contraction this quarter, Bloomberg News reported. Ministry of Finance authorities said Thursday they would accelerate refunds of value-added taxes, make it easier for small companies to bid on government purchasing projects, and ensure that local special bonds -- which are mainly used to fund infrastructure projects -- are issued in a smooth manner, according to a ministry briefing.

China's proposed cybersecurity rules for financial firms could pose risks to operations of western companies by making their data vulnerable to hacking, among other things, a leading lobby group has said in a letter seen by Reuters. The latest regulatory proposal comes at a time when a string of western investment banks and asset managers are expanding their presence in China, either by setting up wholly-owned units or by taking a bigger share in existing joint ventures.

The European Union’s top trade official said China will exploit Russia’s need to diversify where it sells its energy, with the bloc set to ban as much as 90% of Moscow’s crude oil imports by year’s end, Bloomberg News reported. “What we are seeing, especially in this situation of Russia´s weakness, is that China is going to take good advantage of it,” European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told Bloomberg on Wednesday. “It’s not going to be very advantageous for Russia.” Dombrovskis said that Russia is currently selling its oil to China at a 35% discount.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday the Biden administration is actively considering adding new Chinese companies to the government's economic blacklist as it investigates what it calls efforts by China to evade U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported. The Commerce Department's Entity List restricts access to U.S. exports. Raimondo told reporters the administration was working to "get information around bad actors in China and adding those companies to the Entity List ...

India's economic growth slipped to 4.1% year-on-year in January -March, data showed on Tuesday, dragged down by soaring prices that could make the central bank's task of taming inflation without hitting growth more difficult, Reuters reported. Gross domestic product grew 4.1% year-on-year in January-March quarter, the data showed, in line with 4% forecast by economists in a Reuters poll, and below 5.4% growth in Oct-December and growth of 8.4% in July-Sept. India also revised its annual GDP estimates for the fiscal year, predicting 8.7% growth, lower than its earlier estimate of 8.9%.

Sri Lanka’s headline inflation surged to a record in May amid continuing food and fuel shortages as the country struggles to lift itself out of its worst economic crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices in the capital Colombo rose 39.1% from a year ago, the Department of Census and Statistics said in a statement Tuesday. That’s faster than the median 35% climb forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey and is the highest level on record. Food inflation surged 57.4%, while prices of non-food items jumped 30.6%, the data showed.

Japan's jobless rate fell to 2.5% in April, while the availability of jobs increased, government data showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was lower than the 2.6% reported for March, which was also the median forecast for April in a Reuters poll of economists. The jobs-to-applicants ratio was 1.23 in April, labour ministry data showed, in line with a Reuters poll forecast and rising 0.01 point from the previous month's 1.22. Read more.

Economic activity in China declined for a third straight month in May, though at a slower pace than in April, according to surveys of businesses and factories, the Wall Street Journal reported. But while the surveys suggest the economy is beginning to climb out of a severe downturn as Covid-19 restrictions are eased, economists are skeptical about a big revival. Growth will remain subdued, they say, as long as the government employs a zero-tolerance approach to virus outbreaks that involves mass lockdowns and business closures.

China's lack of experience with tricky debt restructurings and slow coordination among its public lenders is holding up debt relief for Zambia, a test case for the top emerging market creditor, Reuters reported. Zambia became in 2020 the first country to default in the COVID-19 pandemic era, struggling under a debt burden worth 120% of GDP. Its external debt topped $17 billion at the end of 2021, of which a third was owed to China, according to Zambian government data.

China Evergrande Group is considering repaying offshore public bondholders owed around $19 billion with cash instalments and equity in two of its Hong Kong-listed units, two sources said, as the world's most indebted developer struggles to emerge from its financial crisis, Reuters reported. Evergrande's entire $22.7 billion worth of offshore debt including loans and private bonds is deemed to be in default after missing payment obligations late last year. It said in March that it will unveil a preliminary debt restructuring proposal by the end of July.