Asia

Turkey’s currency has sustained a fresh blow in a grim 2019 debut marked by rising concerns over the global economy and angst that improving inflation data could prompt the central bank to prematurely reduce interest rates, the Financial Times reported. The lira has tumbled 4 per cent against the US dollar over the past two trading days, according to Refinitiv data. Thursday’s drop left it at TL5.5 to the buck, having closed last year at TL5.2877. It has not faced such a sharp two-day decline since the wake of the currency crisis in August 2018.

For years, no matter what was happening elsewhere, global companies bet billions upon billions of dollars that China’s consumers would keep spending money. Now, just when the world economy could use their financial firepower, they are holding back, worried about the country’s slowing growth, a trade war with the United States and rising amounts of personal debt, the International New York Times reported. Zhao Zheng, 26, is among the cost-conscious consumers. On Thursday, Mr.

Japanese shares slumped at the open on Friday as markets in Japan came back online after a holiday during which a profit warning from Apple sparked a global equities sell-off and fuelled concerns over slowing Chinese growth, the Financial Times reported. The Topix, in its first day of trading for the year, fell as much as 3.2 per cent in early trading with resources stocks down 4 per cent and the technology segment off 3.5 per cent.

Another Chinese peer-to-peer lender told investors on Wednesday it wouldn’t be able to pay them back, highlighting risks to the nation’s broader financial system as rising defaults and tougher regulations hit the $176 billion industry, Bloomberg News reported. Hangzhou-based Xinhehui told investors at a meeting that it won’t be able to make repayments on a total of 2.26 billion yuan ($330 million) of products issued to them, according to attendees and videos seen by Bloomberg News. More than 17,000 individual investors are affected.

All Jet Airways India Ltd. ever needed was 1 rupee, or just 1.4 U.S. cents, for providing hot meals and cold towels. Since even that modest goal has proven elusive, India’s longest-surviving private airline now needs bankers with spine to keep flying. It’s been clear for some time that Jet, falling behind even on pilots’ wages, was going to skip a debt payment soon. Now that a default on bank loans has finally happened, let’s spend a minute on the brutal economics of the missing rupee, a Bloomberg View reported.

Jet Airways India Ltd. has missed a payment to Indian lenders in the latest sign of mounting strains at the country’s second largest airline by passengers, after losses worsened a cash crunch, Bloomberg News reported. The setback underscores a lack of progress lining up sufficient funds for debt payments after the beleaguered carrier approached banks for a moratorium on loans and asked for fresh funds in October. Shares in Jet Airways closed down 6.1 percent, the sharpest decline in more than three weeks.

China will cut the reserve requirement ratio and improve funding conditions this month, as liquidity tightens toward the Spring Festival holidays, the country’s largest securities firm says, Bloomberg News reported. Fresh demand for funds will amount to nearly 4.3 trillion yuan ($625 billion) in January, according to Citic Securities Co. and Bloomberg calculations. Mainland residents will withdraw 1 trillion yuan of cash in preparation for the holiday, when money is gifted in red envelopes.

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. faces losing its entire investment of almost $150 million in a key urban redevelopment project, underscoring the vagaries in China’s property market, Bloomberg News reported. The Shenzhen-based home builder, which gained notoriety in 2015 when it became the first developer from the nation to default on U.S. dollar debt, has invested more than 1 billion yuan ($146 million) in a project in Xi’an to transform a shanty town into residential dwellings.

A new year, a new central bank governor. Yet the first salvo to come out of the Reserve Bank of India’s policy arsenal in 2019 is encouragement of good old “extend and pretend” lending, a Bloomberg View reported. Banks and shadow banks are being allowed a one-time restructuring of loans of up to 250 million rupees ($3.6 million) to micro, small and medium enterprises that were in default on Jan. 1, without having to mark them as nonperforming, the RBI said on Tuesday. Lenders are being given an extension of 15 months (up to March 31, 2020) to pretend that these stressed loans are standard.

India’s central bank will permit lenders to restructure stressed loans to small companies, breaking from a five-year-old policy of eschewing sweeping corporate debt overhauls, Bloomberg News reported. The Reserve Bank of India will allow one-time restructuring of loans to micro, small and medium-sized companies that are in default, the regulator said in a statement on Tuesday. To be eligible for the program, the loan should not exceed 250 million rupees ($3.6 million), according to the statement.