Japan, which has the highest government debt among leading economies, is finding it difficult to spend like it used to, the New York Times reported. Debt-fueled public spending, enabled by low interest rates, has long been a way to address the country’s problems. Struggling farmers and emptying countrysides received generous payments from the central government. Relief aid during the Covid-19 pandemic morphed into new outlays for defense and subsidies to help consumers weather inflation.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed determination Thursday to defend rules-based, free and multilateral trade systems and work on expanding the main Asia-Pacific trade group at a time of tension over U.S. tariffs, the Associated Press reported. “High tariffs will not bring economic prosperity," Ishiba told a global forum in Tokyo. “A prosperity built on sacrifices by someone or another country will not make a strong economy.” Japan seeks to work with the U.S.

South Korea’s central bank slashed its growth outlook for the year, cutting its policy rate in a widely expected move to support the country’s sagging economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The export-led economy is facing challenges from U.S. President Trump’s sweeping tariffs and heightened tensions in global trade, while struggling with weak domestic consumption. Ending a pause in its easing cycle, the Bank of Korea lowered its benchmark seven-day repurchase rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.50% on Thursday. BOK Gov.

Fewer companies went through the insolvency process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in financial year 2025, according to the credit rating firm ICRA, the Economic Times of India reported. As per the ICRA, only 724 companies were admitted for insolvency, a sharp 28 percent drop form 1,003 in the previous year. The number of approved resolution plans also dipped slightly to 259 from 263. In the last quarter of FY2025, lenders recovered about 70 percent of the admitted claims in some cases, registering the highest levels so far, said the ICRA.

Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings Co.’s efforts to win backing for a $14.1 billion offshore restructuring are running into resistance as key bank creditors say failure to accept some of their demands would be a “deal breaker,” Bloomberg Law reported. The company, once China’s largest property developer by contracted sales, got a few months’ reprieve from its liquidation petition hearing on Monday, as High Court Judge Linda Chan decided to adjourn the case to Aug. 11.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut interest rates further Wednesday in a bid to stoke an economic recovery that some economists are warning is under threat, the Wall Street Journal reported. The official cash rate was cut by 25 basis points to 3.25%, the latest in a string of cuts that started in mid-2024. In making its decision, the RBNZ highlighted growing concerns about the global growth outlook amid a destabilizing trade war between the world’s largest economies. “The recently announced increases in global trade barriers weaken the outlook for global economic activity.

The world's poorest nations face a "tidal wave of debt" as repayments to China hit record highs in 2025, an Australian think tank warned in a new report Tuesday, the Japan Times reported. China's Belt and Road initiative lending spree of the 2010s has paid for shipping ports, railways, roads and more from the deserts of Africa to the tropical South Pacific. But new lending is drying up, according to Australia's Lowy Institute, and is now outweighed by the debts that developing countries must pay back.

Dunar Foods Ltd, an accused in the 2016 NSEL scam case involving alleged cheating and siphoning of funds, has been discharged from criminal proceedings, the Times of India reported. The court's decision was based on Section 32A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which grants immunity to corporate debtors once a resolution plan is approved and management changes hands.

China's central bank eased monetary policy last week to limit damage from the trade war with Washington. On Friday, it lowered the ceiling for deposit rates to offset margin pressure on banks and prompt savers to spend or invest more. But successive cuts to deposit rates in recent years have failed to curb explosive growth in Chinese household savings, intensifying concerns over the side-effects that lower returns have on the country's consumers, who tend to build their own safety net, Reuters reported.