Headlines

Peru hopes to increase agricultural investment with a significant reduction in income tax for large export companies, the sector's minister told Reuters on Monday. The Peruvian Congress last week passed a law that reduces income tax to 15% from the current 29.5% for large agricultural exporters over the next 10 years. Medium-sized businesses would pay 1.5% income tax, while small businesses would be exempt from the tax. Peru expects agricultural sales to surpass mining, considered the country's economic engine, by 2050. Peru is the world's third-largest copper producer.

Embattled Chinese property developer Country Garden said on Monday it had reached an agreement with a core group of bank creditors that holds 49% of its offshore debt, marking another step in its $14.1 billion restructuring plan, Reuters reported. Once China's largest developer, the company defaulted on $11 billion in offshore bonds in late 2023, adding to a sector-wide crisis that had already seen high-profile failures, including of China Evergrande Group.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, a total of 309 closures of comprehensive construction companies in South Korea were reported from January to July this year, Chosun Biz reported. This marks an increase of 4.74% compared to the same period last year (295 cases). This means that, on average, about 1.5 construction companies have closed each day this year. Looking at the number of closure reports from comprehensive construction companies on an annual basis, the figure increased from 170 in 2022 to 360 in 2023, and then decreased to 295 last year.

Sanjeev Gupta is lining up financing from BlackRock for a contentious scheme to buy a crucial remaining part of his Liberty Steel business in the UK out of insolvency, a move set to put the metals magnate on a collision course with creditors including UBS, the Financial Times reported.

The number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands dropped significantly in July. According to Statistics Netherlands, a total of 299 companies were declared bankrupt in July, which is 109 fewer than during the same period last year, a drop of 27 percent. It was also 4 percent fewer than in June, NLTimes.nl reported. The bankruptcy rate, the number of bankruptcies per 100,000 companies, was 8.1 in July. A year earlier, 11.3 out of every 100,000 companies were declared bankrupt.

Brazil’s banking sector has been grappling with a sharp rise in defaults in agribusiness in recent months. Despite expectations for record corn production and a strong soybean harvest in 2025, a mix of pressures has worsened financial stress across the sector. The downturn began with falling commodity prices, which squeezed margins of highly leveraged farmers who had borrowed when Brazil’s Selic rate was at historic lows in 2020 and 2021.

The global economy appears to have taken a sharp rise in U.S. tariffs and increased uncertainty about the future of the international trading system in its stride, but faces stronger headwinds as tax rates continue to climb, the Wall Street Journal reported. As more countries release figures for economic growth that cover the second quarter of this year, a clear pattern has emerged. Those that grew rapidly in the first quarter as U.S. businesses raced to build up inventories ahead of higher tariffs slowed in the second quarter as those duties were imposed.

India expects consumption tax cuts announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give a boost to the economy without hurting the government’s fiscal deficit, helping to offset the fallout from higher U.S. tariffs, Bloomberg News reported. Officials in New Delhi said on the weekend that the proposed changes to the goods and services tax — which will see the number of tax categories reduced to two from four — would benefit a broad range of sectors, including consumers and small businesses.

Hong Kong's debt-laden developers and their creditors are set to face intensifying financial pressure as bond maturities are slated to jump by nearly 70% next year amid falling sales and valuations for the city's economically crucial property sector, Reuters reported. Road King last week became the first city-based developer to default on bond coupons since China's property debt crisis began in 2021, following the first loan default by listed peer Emperor International earlier this year.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG is working on a debut significant risk transfer tied to billions of dollars of U.S. commercial real estate loans, Bloomberg News reported. The Garching-based bank is sounding out investors about the potential transaction. In June, PBB said it would discontinue its US business completely and planned to wind down, securitize or sell a portfolio of about €4.1 billion of US commercial real estate loans. Earlier this month it booked €314 million in charges linked to its decision to exit the U.S.