Japan pledged $3.4 billion in its largest contribution to the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, to ensure the recovery of low-income countries from the COVID-19 pandemic, finance ministry officials said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The pledge came as Japan hosted an online meeting on the 20th replenishment of the IDA, brought forward by a year at the initiative of the world's third biggest economy, amid concern about shortage of funds to boost vaccines and medical systems.

A wave of selling swept through Chinese developers’ bonds and shares after the sudden plunge in a major property firm’s notes renewed concern over the health of the sector, Bloomberg News reported. Shimao Group Holdings Ltd.’s dollar notes dropped as much as 12 cents on the dollar, with the selloff spreading to other company bonds including Sunac China Holdings Ltd. and KWG Group Holdings Ltd. Trading was halted in six of Shimao’s yuan bonds after they plunged, with one falling more than 50%.

India is working out a package on an urgent basis to assist Sri Lanka, following finance minister Basil Rajapaksa's New Delhi visit that focussed on measures to tide over an economic crisis that the island nation is facing, the Economic Times of India reported. India is expected to extend a food & health security package to Sri Lanka on an urgent basis, along with an energy security package and currency swap, and also push Indian investments, officials told ET.

Four leading textile players — Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, B K Goenka’s Welspun, Sanjay Dalmia’s GHCL and Dinesh Kumar Himatsingka’s Himatsingka — placed bids for the bankrupt Sintex Industries, which weaves fabrics for global fashion brands like Armani, Burberry and Diesel, the Economic Times of India reported. While RIL teamed up with stressed asset buyer Assets Care & Reconstruction Enterprise for the Sintex bid, the other three parties have made solo offers.

The Bank of Japan is expected to decide as early as next week to scale back emergency funding deployed last year to combat a pandemic-induced cash crunch, sources say, following other central banks in gradually phasing out crisis-mode policies, Reuters reported. At a two-day rate review ending on Dec. 17, the BOJ is set to maintain ultra-loose monetary policy but debate whether to extend its emergency pandemic-relief programmes beyond the current the March 2022 deadline.

Economists predict China will start adding fiscal stimulus in early 2022 after the country’s top officials said their key goals for the coming year include counteracting growth pressures and stabilizing the economy, Bloomberg News reported. Curbs on the property industry are expected to remain, while there could be fewer regulatory surprises compared with sudden moves in 2021 to rein in sectors from technology to education and entertainment, the economists said.

A debt restructuring just getting underway at flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia is forcing creditors to weigh short-term losses against the potential for gains further down the line in one of the fastest growing aviation markets in Asia, Bloomberg News reported. The airline is entering a court-supervised debt restructuring process after a Jakarta court on Thursday accepted a debt petition filed against it. Garuda and its creditors have 45 days to complete negotiations, which can be extended to 270 days.

Turkish policy makers failed to arrest the lira’s free fall with their third intervention this month as the currency quickly resumed losses amid an interest-rate policy seen as too loose by markets, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary authority said Friday it sold foreign exchange because of “unhealthy” price formations, echoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s words to describe the recent turbulence. While the lira rebounded briefly, it slid back closer to 14 per dollar, near levels that sparked all the three interventions.

The defaults and slow-moving crises of companies in China’s property sector isn’t just hurting bond-holders and people waiting for their apartments - thousands of small suppliers of everything from tiles to cleaning services are waiting to get paid by the likes of China Evergrande Group, Bloomberg News reported. Feng Guoxun’s company is one such supplier. The 36-year-old says his advertising company is owed $200,000 by property developers including Evergrande, with those unpaid debts pushing him to the brink of bankruptcy.

The number of corporate bankruptcies in Japan in November hit a 56-year low for the month, thanks to the government’s continued financing support amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a private survey showed on Wednesday, the Japan Times reported. The figure dropped 10.3% from a year before to 510, down for the sixth straight month, according to the survey by Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. Total liabilities left by failed companies fell 7.8% to ¥94,101 million. The survey covered business failures involving liabilities of ¥10 million or more.