Headlines

Germany’s financial regulator plans to ask the country’s insurers if they grasp the risk of investments they have made in direct loans and private credit funds after a search for yield in the previous decade, Bloomberg News reported. Insurers’ management of risks from private debt and other alternative assets will be a special focus of BaFin’s assessment this year of their investment behavior, Mark Branson, who leads the watchdog, told reporters in Frankfurt on Jan. 28.

One of China’s biggest property companies warned of a multibillion-dollar loss with its top executives resigning on Monday, raising fears that even developers once regarded as among the country’s most solid are vulnerable to China’s brutal, drawn-out real-estate crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported. China Vanke warned on Monday of a loss of 45 billion yuan, equivalent to around $6.2 billion, for 2024, and said Chairman Yu Liang and Chief Executive Officer Zhu Jiusheng will resign.

The Irish economy recorded a surprise contraction as 2024 drew to a close, a blow to the eurozone economy, of which it is one of smallest but most changeable members, the Wall Street Journal reported. But while the country’s central bank expects to see a return to growth this year and next, it has also warned that the Irish economy is particularly vulnerable to changes in tax and tariff policies under President Trump’s second administration.

Thailand transferred about US$890 million to its senior citizens on Monday (Jan 27), part of a government programme to tackle the high cost of living and stimulate the nations’ sluggish economy, Bloomberg News reported. More than 3 million senior citizens were given 10,000 baht each (S$399), and the dole out will boost the country’s US$500 billion economy, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said. The government will continue the cash stimulus programme, she said without elaborating.

Thailand’s domestic automobile sales slumped to the lowest in 15 years, denting its reputation as the “Detroit of Asia,” as demand was squeezed by stricter bank-loan approvals and high household debt, Bloomberg News reported. Domestic sales declined 26% to 572,675 units last year, a figure not seen since 2009, Surapong Paisitpattanapong, spokesman of the automobile industry group at the Federation of Thai Industries, told a briefing Tuesday. Sales dropped 21% in December from a year earlier to 54,016 units.

Australia’s quarterly inflation data this week may be key to whether the Reserve Bank finally embarks on a monetary easing cycle soon, and in turn, help decide the timing of an election due by May 17, Bloomberg News reported. While money markets are pricing about an 80% chance the RBA will cut the cash rate at its Feb. 17-18 meeting, much depends on price data scheduled for release on Wednesday. Economists expect the trimmed mean inflation — the more closely-watched gauge less affected by the impact of recent government rebates — to have eased to 3.3%, a three-year low.

A planned merger between Brazilian airlines Gol and Azul would strengthen the sector and prevent either company from failing, Brazil's ports and airports minister told Reuters, giving the potential move a key government nod, Reuters reported. Azul and Abra, the majority investor of Gol and Colombia's Avianca, announced earlier this month they had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the intent of combining their businesses in Brazil.

Spain’s unemployment rate fell again in the fourth quarter of 2024, likely reflecting a buoyant economy last year that was boosted by tourism, investment and immigration, the Wall Street Journal reported. Joblessness fell to 10.6% in the October-December period, down from 11.2% in the three months to September, and 11.8% in the fourth quarter of 2023, Spain’s statistics body INE said Tuesday. The number of unemployed people declined by 158,600 to 2.60 million in the quarter, the agency said.

New Zealand relaxed its visa requirements for remote workers on Monday, as the country looked to spur economic growth by courting “digital nomads,” the skilled professionals who can work from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection, the New York Times reported. With the new policy, a New Zealand visitor visa, which allows foreigners to remain for up to nine months, now also permits them to work for overseas employers during that time, which had been forbidden.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Monday set aside a plea against HUL, filed by an operational creditor seeking initiation of insolvency proceedings against the FMCG major, the Economic Times of India reported. The appellate tribunal has upheld an order passed by the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which on September 5, 2024 had set aside a plea filed under Section 9 of IBC by K Lakshmi Narayana, Proprietor of Lalithambica Enterprises, alleging default.