Malaysia Airlines is struggling to make payments owed to creditors and lessors amid the coronavirus pandemic that has forced it to slash its operations, Reuters reported. The national airline, which restructured after two deadly crashes in 2014, has a new plan involving big discounts from creditors, but unlike last time the cash-strapped government is unwilling to bail it out. The airline has been loss-making for about a decade. Losses were aggravated by two tragedies in 2014 - the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 and the shooting down of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine.

Businesses across Singapore have been left scrambling to process payments for everything from hotel stays to telephone bills after the city-state’s regulator shut down the payment services of fraudulent German group Wirecard, the Financial Times reported. Cafés, restaurants, hotels and mobile network providers were left with no payment processing systems after the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the de facto central bank, late last month ordered Wirecard to cease payment services in the city-state. Some banks in Singapore had advised their clients to consider switching pay

Sometimes, letting go is the hardest thing to do. China’s most ambitious companies have yet to learn that lesson, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. The corporate sector has gone on a global shopping spree in recent years, buying expensive assets by raising new debt. Now, struggling to repay their loans, some are unwilling to part with their purchases, even as they walk to the brink of bankruptcy. The end result can only be untimely defaults. Consider Tianqi Lithium Corp., China’s largest lithium carbonate producer and a key supplier to the buzzing electric vehicle industry.

Bad debts could become more of a headache for Turkish banks when credit expansion slows, which threatens to reverse a decline in the ratio of souring loans, according to European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Bloomberg News reported. “The NPL issue is an elephant-in-the-room,” Roger Kelly, EBRD’s Istanbul-based lead regional economist, said in an interview. A boom in credit extension increases the risk of taking on riskier customers, and means many of the loans are still relatively young, he said.

A consensus is emerging among G20 nations to extend a debt-payment freeze next week for poor countries for an additional six months, a French finance ministry source said on Friday, Reuters reported. Members of the Group of 20 economic powers and the Paris Club of creditor nations agreed in April to suspend until the end of the year debt payments owed to them by poor countries to free up resources for tackling the coronavirus outbreak. G20 finance ministers are due to take a decision on what to do after the end of the year when they hold an online meeting next Wednesday, the source said.

Shares in AirAsia’s long-haul unit skidded after the Malaysian carrier launched a last-ditch plan to save the business, blaming “severe liquidity constraints” caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. AirAsia X’s Kuala Lumpur-traded stock fell 10 per cent on Wednesday a day after the company warned of “an imminent default of contractual commitments [that] will precipitate a potential liquidation of the airline”. The proposed restructuring comes as the future of AirAsia, owned by Malaysian tycoon Tony Fernandes, hangs in the balance.

China Evergrande Group shares fell after the embattled developer completed about 71% of its sales target in the two months through October, offering its steepest discount in history that could squeeze margins, Bloomberg News reported. The shares fell as much as 2.7% after it said contracted sales were 142 billion yuan ($21 billion) between Sept. 1 and Oct. 8, according to an exchange filing Friday. It generated 173 billion yuan for the two months through October last year.

The parent of Malaysia Airlines has warned leasing companies that state fund Khazanah will stop funding the group and force it into a winding down process if restructuring talks with lessors are unsuccessful, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The warning from Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), the holding company for the state carrier, raises the stakes in negotiations for a financial shake-up known as “Plan A” and sets out an alternative plan to divert funds to a sister airline unit called Firefly, Reuters reported.

Countries could face years of negotiations to rework their debt with China as a growing number of loans run into trouble following decades of aggressive lending by the world’s largest official creditor, Bloomberg News reported. Chinese lenders at times lack coordination and don’t follow standard relief terms to renegotiate debt, adding uncertainty to the outcome of talks to overhaul $28 billion in loans in a number of countries, according to research by Rhodium Group, a New York-based economic and policy consultancy.

The global economy is in “less dire” shape than it was in June but risks crashing again if governments end fiscal and monetary support too soon, fail to control the coronavirus and ignore emerging market debt problems, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.