Headlines

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Mumbai recently had allowed an application filed by Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company Limited and initiated Corporate insolvency proceedings against well known art director Nitin Desai’s ND’s Art World Pvt Ltd over a debt of Rs 252 crore, the Economic Times of India reported. Edelweiss had filed the company petition last year to initiate Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process against the Corporate Debtor for unresolved financial debt of Rs 252 crore.

China will lower financing costs for firms, stabilise market expectations and support the property sector in coming months, the central bank said on Tuesday amid a flagging economic recovery, Reuters reported. The world's No.2 economy staged a better-than-expected recovery in the first quarter following COVID reopening but has lost steam since the April-June quarter as demand waned both at home and abroad.

Some Chinese city governments have made it harder for developers to access tens of billions of dollars from property sales held in escrow accounts, raising risks the cash-strapped companies will be squeezed even more, Reuters reported. The moves are aimed at ensuring the completion of more unfinished projects at the city level, they said, at a time home sales are sliding and the future of the whole sector is uncertain.

Chile's economic activity index dropped for the fifth month in a row in June, central bank data showed on Tuesday, underscoring some weakness in the world's largest copper producer just as the monetary authority starts cutting interest rates, Reuters reported.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva expects Brazil’s central bank to begin cutting interest rates on Wednesday, saying he “can only hope” that policymakers launch the easing cycle he has demanded for months, Bloomberg News reported. Analysts widely anticipate that the central bank will begin lowering the benchmark Selic from its six-year high of 13.75% when its monetary policy committee concludes its August rate decision meeting later in the day.

Net foreign assets held by Egypt’s commercial banks went into a record deficit in June, as a lack inflows drives a deterioration in the finances of a country already struggling with its worst hard-currency shortage in years, Bloomberg News reported. The gap among lenders reached $17.1 billion, compared with $14.5 billion in May, according to data released by the central bank. The shortfall opened up as a result of a $1.7 billion drop in banks’ assets and an around $950 million increase in their liabilities.

National Bank of Canada said on Tuesday it has agreed to buy collapsed U.S. regional lender Silicon Valley Bank's Canadian commercial loan portfolio, as the smallest of Canada's top six lenders looks to expand its footprint in the tech sector and diversify its loan book, Reuters reported. National Bank said in a statement it will acquire the C$1 billion ($752 million) loan portfolio made up of technology, life science and global fund banking sectors. Around C$325 million of that is outstanding.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, was supposed to leave China behind when the country made cryptocurrency trading illegal in 2021. Almost two years later, users traded $90 billion of cryptocurrency-related assets in China in a single month, according to internal figures viewed by The Wall Street Journal and current and former employees. The transactions made China Binance’s biggest market by far, accounting for 20% of volume worldwide, excluding trades made by a subset of very large traders.

Kenya's interior ministry said on Wednesday that it had suspended the local activities of cryptocurrency project Worldcoin while government agencies assess potential risks to public safety, Reuters reported. The project founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman launched last week. It requires users to give their iris scans in exchange for a digital ID, and in some countries users also get free cryptocurrency as part of plans to create a new "identity and financial network".

Ukraine's economy is expected to grow by about 5% next year driven by investment in reconstruction and stronger consumer demand, a senior Economy Ministry official said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Natalia Horshkova, head of the ministry's department for strategic planning and macroeconomic forecasting, said the ministry expected gross domestic product to grow by around 2.8% this year. "We expect 5% growth in 2024. The driver will be investment dynamics," she told a roundtable on the economy.