Turkey’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 17% at the first monetary policy meeting of the year, pledging to keep it elevated for an “extended” period, Bloomberg News reported. The lira rose. The Monetary Policy Committee’s decision was in line with the forecasts of most analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The dissenters, including economists at Morgan Stanley and Societe Generale SA, had predicted an increase of 50 to 100 basis points.

India’s Supreme Court upheld laws that protect new owners of insolvent companies from charges filed against the previous management in a verdict that could pave the way for faster resolution of big bankruptcies, Bloomberg News reported. A bankrupt company and its assets cannot face criminal proceedings once it is sold to new owners, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday while dismissing petitions challenging the rules. The former management can still be prosecuted.

New York-listed Best Inc, a Chinese logistics firm backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, is considering a sale as part of a strategic review, Reuters reported. With the endorsement of Alibaba, its biggest shareholder, Best has tapped financial advisers to explore options as its shares have been underperforming and are worth a fifth of its IPO price in 2018, two of the people involved in the discussions said.

A tug of war has emerged in Japan between authorities calling on restaurants to close early to stem the spread of the coronavirus, and business owners who say such requests are pushing them past their limits, Bloomberg News reported. With Japan’s virus strategy dependent on voluntary cooperation, the struggle shows the limits of its social compliance model as the pandemic drags on into a second year.

China postponed Kenyan debt repayments due over the next six months, a week after the Paris Club of creditors offered the East African nation similar relief, Bloomberg News reported. Kenya had been scheduled to pay 27 billion shillings ($245 million) to China from January through June, Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani said Wednesday on Spice FM radio in the capital, Nairobi. The delayed payments were agreed after talks with the Chinese government, he said.

One thing is missing from China’s otherwise remarkable economic recovery: a strong rebound in consumer spending, the Wall Street Journal reported. Even though China was the only major economy to expand during the Covid-19 pandemic last year, its growth remains highly unbalanced, relying heavily on exports of manufactured goods to the U.S. and elsewhere. Domestic consumption has lagged, with retail sales shrinking 3.9% in 2020 from the previous year and demand for imported goods falling slightly. There are many reasons for the weakness.

Beijing’s bar against Australian coal imports is upending global flows of the energy commodity, leaving dozens of loaded ships stranded off the Chinese coast and reshaping the direction of the seaborne trade, the Wall Street Journal reported. The flotilla of coal carriers sitting outside Chinese ports has grown to some 65 vessels, according to ship brokers in Singapore and London. Ship operators and coal suppliers unable to find new buyers for their cargo are waiting out a trade dispute that has lasted several months.

India’s troubled shadow banks face mounting challenges to a nascent recovery from the pandemic, with their asset quality set to deteriorate further as flagged recently by the financial regulator, Bloomberg News reported. Non-performing assets already swelled in the most recent data to the highest in at least five years, at 6.3% as of March 2020 even before the worst of the pandemic impact, the Reserve Bank of India said in a report last week. That’s up 100 basis points from the year earlier, and the RBI forecasts it’s headed higher.

Billionaire Ajay Piramal’s conglomerate won bidding for bankrupt Indian shadow lender Dewan Housing Finance Corp., advancing a keenly watched insolvency that’s been a test of the country’s bankruptcy system, Bloomberg News reported. A resolution plan for Dewan from Piramal Enterprises Ltd.’s own shadow bank, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd., was approved by Dewan’s committee of creditors in a vote on Friday, according to a statement Sunday. People familiar with the matter had said Friday that Piramal received almost 94% of the votes while rival Oaktree Capital got less than half.