National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will seek a suspension of debt payments to creditors and lessors under a 'standstill agreement' in order to avoid bankruptcy, a senior government official said on Thursday, Channel News Asia reported. The coronavirus pandemic has put the state-controlled airline's finances under serious strain with a negative cashflow of about US$100 million a month and ballooning debt, Kartika Wirjoatmodjo, Indonesia's deputy minister of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), told a parliamentary hearing.
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Troubled state finance company China Huarong Asset Management on Thursday successfully completed its biggest bond redemption since default worries erupted in April, but investors remain concerned about its long-term health and that of its peers, Nikkei Asia reported. The company, originally set up to manage soured loans extended by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, repaid a $900 million bond right on time. Huarong over the weekend also repaid a 500 million yuan ($78.3 million) domestic bond, according to Bloomberg.
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Authorities in Sri Lanka were trying to head off a potential environmental disaster Thursday as a fire-damaged container ship that had been carrying chemicals was sinking off of the country’s main port, the Associated Press reported. The Singapore-flagged MV X-Press Pearl started sinking on Wednesday, a day after authorities extinguished a fire that raged on the vessel for 12 days. Efforts to tow the ship into deeper waters away from the port in Colombo failed after the ship’s stern became submerged and rested on the seabed.
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China’s central bank is trying to restrain the surging exchange rate of its currency, temporarily backtracking in efforts to make the tightly controlled yuan more flexible and market-oriented, the Associated Press reported. On Monday, commercial lenders were ordered to hold more of their foreign currency as reserves in the central bank to limit sales after the yuan hit a four-year high of 6.3674 to the U.S dollar. The People’s Bank of China is trying to deter speculators after the yuan rose by about 12% against the dollar since May.
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Australia’s economy raced ahead last quarter as consumers and businesses spent with abandon, lifting output back above where it was last year when pandemic lockdowns tipped the country into its first recession in three decades, Reuters reported. The economy expanded by a real 1.8% in the three months to March, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed on Wednesday. The solid back-to-back quarterly growth helped annual output climb 1.1% to A$525.7 billion ($408.05 billion), a major turnaround from last year's recession low of $468.3 billion.
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China’s finance ministry is considering a proposal to transfer its shares in China Huarong Asset Management Co. and three other bad-debt managers to a new holding company modeled after the one that owns the government’s stakes in state-run banks, Bloomberg News reported. Policy makers are re-examining the proposal, which was first tabled three years ago, as part of discussions on how to deal with the financial risks posed by Huarong.
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Canada’s Centerra Gold Inc. on Monday said that Kyrgyzstan units Kumtor Gold Co. and Kumtor Operating Co. have commenced bankruptcy proceedings in a U.S. court following nationalization of the miner’s Kumtor gold mine by the former Soviet republic, Reuters reported. Centerra said that the chapter 11 filing would have no financial or operational impact on it or any other areas of its business, including the Mount Milligan mine in Canada, the Oksut Mine in Turkey and its molybdenum business in North America. Kumtor, Kyrgyzstan’s largest foreign investment project, was operated by Centerra.
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China's factory activity expanded at the fastest pace this year in May as domestic and export demand picked up, though sharp rises in raw material prices and strains in supply chains crimped some companies' production, a business survey showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 52.0 last month, the highest level since December and inching up from April's 51.9. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the index to remain at 51.9. The 50-mark separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis.
South Korea exports logged their sharpest expansion in 32 years in May, marking another robust month of shipments fuelled by stronger consumer demand globally as many economies start to reopen, Reuters reported. Surging chip and car shipments helped power a 45.6% surge in South Korea's exports from a year earlier, government data showed on Tuesday, posting the fastest growth since August 1988 and extending their expansion to a seventh month in a row.
The authorities in Sri Lanka have opened a criminal investigation into the crew of a cargo ship laden with toxic chemicals that has been burning off the island nation’s coast for 12 days, spilling debris into the ocean and polluting the country’s beaches, the New York Times reported.