Asia

Debt-ridden Future Group firm Future Enterprises Ltd expects to raise around Rs 3,000 crore from selling its stake in the insurance business to pare debt, which may save the company from facing the rigour of the insolvency process, the Economic Times of India reported. Earlier on Thursday, Future Enterprises Ltd completed the sale of its 25 percent equity in Future Generali India Insurance Company Ltd to joint venture partner Generali for Rs 1,266.07 crore. After this transaction, FEL will directly and indirectly continue to hold 24.91 per cent shares in FGIICL.

China's central bank said on Friday it launch a 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) relending facility to support the transport, logistics and storage sectors which have been hit hard by COVID-19, Reuters reported. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) will better combine its broad-based and structural policy instruments, and constantly optimise its structural policy system, it said in a statement posted on its Wechat account.

A Singapore court has charged 47-year-old U.K. national James Henry O’Sullivan with two additional counts of allegedly abetting falsification of documents, according to local police, Bloomberg News reported. O’Sullivan allegedly helped Singaporean businessman R. Shanmugaratnam to falsify documents and issue letters that falsely claimed certain amounts of money were held in a bank under escrow, the Singapore Police Force said Thursday in a statement on its website.

Sri Lanka’s president declared a state of emergency Friday giving him broad authority amid widespread public protests demanding his resignation over the country’s worst economic crisis in recent memory, the Associated Press reported. The decree issued by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa invokes sections of the Public Security Ordinance that allow him to make regulations in the interests of public security, the preservation of public order, the suppression of mutiny, riot or civil commotion, or for the maintenance of essential supplies.

A business group warned on Thursday that China’s “dynamic zero Covid” policies have left European companies considerably less willing to continue investing in the country, the New York Times reported. A survey by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China found that the tone among European businesses in the country had soured since January, when a survey found broad optimism and plans for further investment.

Sri Lanka remains deep in the throes of a balance of payments crisis that has crippled the country’s ability to import necessities and make payments on its over $30 billion in foreign debts, Sri Lanka’s finance minister said, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. “Right now if you look at our usable liquid reserves, [they] are running next to zero, we just don’t have it,” the South Asian nation’s finance minister, Ali Sabry, said in an interview.

India's central bank is expected to frontload more aggressive interest rate hikes in its effort to tame high inflation, at least until its repo rate hits its pre-COVID level of 5.15%, economists said after a long-anticipated rate hike on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Most economists are now forecasting a cumulative 125-150 basis points of rate hikes over the next 12 months, compared with about 50 basis points expected three months ago, on the grounds that inflation could remain around 7% for at least three months more due to soaring global energy, food, and manufacturing prices.

Turkey's annual inflation jumped to a two-decade high of 69.97% in April, according to data on Thursday, fuelled by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and rising energy and commodity prices after last year's lira crash, Reuters reported. The surge in prices has badly strained households just over a year before presidential and parliamentary elections that could bring the curtain down on President Tayyip Erdogan's long rule.

China's central bank on Wednesday pledged monetary policy support to ensure ample liquidity, help businesses badly hit by the latest COVID-19 outbreak in the country and support a recovery in consumption, Reuters reported. The remarks came after a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party last week also vowed to support the economy. "(We shall) waste no time planning incremental policy tools to support steady economic growth, stabilise employment and prices ... to provide a fair monetary and financial environment," the People's Bank of China said in a statement on Wednesday.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Mumbai has been approached by Bank of India in the case regarding Future Retail Limited as they want to initiate the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), India Legal reported. The bench of Justice P.N. Deshmukh and technical member S.B. Vohra have issued notice to Future Retail. They have given the company time to file their response.