Japan has joined a growing list of nations, including Spain and Canada, that are assembling aid plans to help blunt the domestic impact of President Trump’s tariffs, the New York Times reported. On Tuesday, Japan approved a $6.3 billion spending package to “fully support” businesses and households adversely affected by the tariffs, Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said in a briefing. The funds will bolster the finances of small and medium-sized businesses and subsidize household energy costs, he said.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang rallied a group of Southeast Asian and Gulf states to deepen cooperation and touted his country’s economic strength, as Beijing ramps up its charm offensive abroad to counter US efforts to isolate the economy, Bloomberg News reported. “We should firmly expand regional opening up and develop a big market,” Li said at a meeting with leaders from Southeast Asia and the Middle East in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

The Bank of Japan must be vigilant to the risk rising food prices could push up underlying inflation that is already near its 2% target, Governor Kazuo Ueda said, signaling the central bank's readiness to continue its rate hikes, Reuters reported. The BOJ keeps interest rates low as inflation expectations, or the public's perception on future price moves, stand between 1.5% and 2% - the highest in 30 years though still below its 2% target, Ueda said in a speech at a BOJ-hosted conference.

Reserve Bank of India is "examining" the licensing framework for banks to align it with the evolving needs of the economy and is also reviewing the role of lenders in distributing insurance products, amid complaints of mis-selling, the Times of India reported.

Prosecutors investigating the so-called Homeplus scandal have imposed a travel ban on Michael ByungJu Kim, chairman of MBK Partners and the alleged central figure in the case, the Korea Joongang Daily reported. According to legal sources on Monday, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s Anti-Corruption Investigation Division recently requested the Ministry of Justice to bar Kim, a U.S. citizen, from leaving Korea.

The storm clouds for China were gathering when leader Xi Jinping convened the country’s top scientists at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in May 2018. The U.S. was beginning to clamp down on selling technology to China, with more restrictions on the way, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. China must not be forced to beg others for technology, Xi said. Only through self-reliance “can we fundamentally safeguard national economic security,” he said. Since then, China has raced ahead in many strategic sectors—and in some cases is catching up with the U.S.

South Korea will prepare support measures for agricultural and food exporters, while closely monitoring the impact of U.S. tariffs on the sector, the finance ministry said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The United States is the biggest export market for the sector, with more growth potential expected from a boom in demand for South Korean foods, the ministry said in a statement after a meeting to review government responses to U.S. tariffs. South Korean officials travelled to Washington, D.C.

Bank of Japan policy board member Asahi Noguchi struck a more cautious tone about the pace of the bank’s future interest-rate hikes, saying it should take “a measured, step-by-step approach,” the Wall Street Journal reported. In a speech to business leaders in Japan’s southern prefecture of Miyazaki, Noguchi said the central bank should take the time to examine the economic impact of each rate increase and assess both upside and downside risks before considering the next one.

Creditors have realised ₹3.89 lakh crore from resolution plans through March 2025, under India’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) enacted in the year 2016, TheHindu.com reported. The realisation is more than 32.8% as against the admitted claims and more than 170.1% as against the liquidation value, insolvency regulator Insolvency & Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) said in its January-March 2025 quarterly newsletter. Resolution plans on average are yielding 93.41% of fair value of the Corporate Debtors (CDs), it said.

China’s Hozon New Energy Automobile, the manufacturer of Neta-branded battery electric vehicles (BEVs), is the subject of a bankruptcy review case filed by a local advertising company, according to a notification on the country’s National Enterprise Bankruptcy Information Disclosure Platform, GlobalData.com reported. As the news spread rapidly across the local media, the struggling automaker has been forced to deny growing speculation that it had itself filed for bankruptcy.