Asia

A statue of a golden bull, poised to charge, stands outside the headquarters of Xiangtan Jiuhua, a government-owned company that funds much of Xiangtan’s infrastructure investment. It has seen better days: the gold paint is flaking and the torso is cracked. That makes it a fitting symbol for public finances in the sprawling prefecture of 3m people in central China, and scores of similar cities across the country, where the ambitions of local officials have collided with heavy debt loads, The Economist reported.

Paragon Entertainment said on Thursday it did not have enough cash to run its operations or pay its dues and the company has decided to appoint administrators as soon as possible, while its top boss resigned, Reuters reported. The company, which has designed visitor attractions and experiences such as The Rolling Stones Exhibitionism at the Saatchi Gallery, said Chief Executive Damien Latham has resigned with immediate effect.

China’s central bank has acknowledged its monetary tools are insufficient. The most powerful ones are proving too blunt to drill through a hardening financial system, a Bloomberg View reported. The country’s money markets have been shuddering since regulators took over Baoshang Bank Co. last month, despite initial assurances from the central bank and other authorities that they would maintain ample liquidity. While there has been little direct contagion, the seizure of the small commercial lender has hurt confidence.

There’s yet another sign that India’s push to quickly expand its corporate debt market is faltering, as borrowers turn more to banks already struggling with one of the world’s worst bad debt ratios, Bloomberg News reported. India’s bond market remains small compared with other major economies, frustrating policy makers who champion it as a way of diffusing credit risks that have stacked up at banks.

State Bank of India (SBI), the lead banker to Jet Airways, on Tuesday filed an insolvency plea against the crisis-hit airline under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai, Business Standard reported. The tribunal will hear the plea on June 19. Ashish Chhawchharia of advisory firm Grant Thornton has been selected interim resolution professional by the SBI and one of the first tasks before him would be to gather details of the airline’s assets, aircraft, and employees on the rolls.

The slump in Japanese exports accelerated during May on the back of an escalation in global trade tensions and the effects of a lengthy holiday to mark the ascension of a new emperor, the Financial Times reported. Data published by Japan’s Finance Ministry on Wednesday showed that exports from the world’s third-biggest economy fell by 7.8 per cent during the month compared to a year ago, marking the sixth month of contraction in a row.

Chinese lenders, including China Development Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Exim Bank of China, have demanded at least $2.1 billion from embattled Indian tycoon Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications Ltd., that slid into bankruptcy earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported. State-owned China Development Bank, with loans worth 98.6 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) was the biggest creditor to the indebted telecom company, according to a filing made by the Indian company to stock exchanges.

Jet Airways’ creditors said on Monday they plan to begin insolvency proceedings against the Indian airline in a last-ditch bid to find a buyer for the carrier or its remaining assets and recover some of what they are owed, Reuters reported. Once India’s biggest private carrier, Jet Airways stopped flying in April after running out of cash, leaving thousands without jobs and pushing up air fares across the country. “Lenders have decided to seek resolution under IBC since only a conditional bid was received,” they said in a statement, referring to India’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

Turkey’s credit score slid deeper into junk as Moody’s Investors Service cut its assessment, citing an increasing risk of a balance of payments crisis and a government default, Bloomberg News reported. Turkey’s long-term issuer rating was lowered to B1 from Ba3 by Moody’s, the rating company said in a statement on Friday. The outlook on the rating is negative. Turkey is now four notches below investment grade, on par with Jordan, Greece, and Uzbekistan. “The balance of risk is firmly tilted to the downside,” Moody’s said.

A Danish high court has increased the prison sentence for a former manager of OW Bunker’s Singapore arm to five years, after prosecutors appealed against the original 18-month sentence for actions that contributed to the marine fuel supplier’s collapse, Reuters reported. OW Bunker filed for bankruptcy in 2014 just eight months after listing in Copenhagen, partly due to losses on an estimated $120-$130 million credit line given by its Singapore-based arm to small local company, Tankoil Marine Services.