Bloomberg The US returned to Malaysia another $300 million that was recovered as part of the Justice Department’s forfeiture lawsuits targeting assets that fugitive financier Low Taek Jho and his associates bought with funds allegedly stolen from the country’s 1MDB investment fund. With the latest repatriation, the US has sent $600 million back to Malaysia as part of the continuing ...

Bloomberg Singapore home sales slumped in March and are set to take a harder hit in coming months as the government enforces a more draconian lockdown that threatens to bring the property market to a standstill. Sales in the city-state fell 32% to 660 units last month — even before the toughest curbs were imposed — from 976 in February, ...

Bloomberg Get your potassium while you can. The coronavirus pandemic may limit supplies of bananas in Asia. Growers in the Philippines, the world’s second-biggest exporter, said overseas shipments may drop by nearly 40% this year as lockdowns and social distancing measures curb output and transport. The country’s exports of the fruit are expected to plunge to about 2.5 million tons ...

Bloomberg Thailand’s gold shops are running out of cash because so many people want to sell ornaments, jewelry and bars amid an economic slowdown. “I’m asking people to sell gradually, not in large amounts, as shops may face a cash crunch,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said in a briefing on Wednesday in Bangkok. The yellow metal remains a popular way ...

Bloomberg India’s southwest monsoon, which waters more than half of the country’s farmland and is crucial for economic growth, is expected to be normal this year, the weather office said. Annual rainfall during the June-September rainy season is likely to be 100% of the long-term average, Madhavan Nair Rajeevan, secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, said.

Bloomberg One of the biggest Texas shale explorers warned it will halt all drilling if the state imposes Opec-style production caps, raising the stakes in a debate over a contentious proposal to arrest free-falling oil prices. The stark pronouncement from Diamondback Energy Inc’s finance chief stunned observers of the virtual hearing by the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees oil output ...

Bloomberg The pain felt by Big Oil from the coronavirus-led plunge in demand may derail global efforts to cut pollution, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. The slowdown and falling prices “undermines the ability of the oil industry to develop some of the technologies needed for clean energy transitions around the world,” said the Paris-based agency. The industry has repeatedly ...

Bloomberg Denmark may issue securities in foreign currencies for the first time in years as the government debt office pulls out the stops to finance programs to support the economy through the coronavirus crisis. While issuing in Danish kroner is the preferred option, Denmark is “one of the few countries in the world with the highest credit rating” and therefore ...

Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said all European countries can and should react “forcefully” to the economic crisis unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic, endorsing governments’ efforts to increase spending. “Fiscal deficits in Europe are said to increase by about 6% of GDP in 2020. This is large, but it’s entirely appropriate in the current crisis,” European Department Director Poul ...

Bloomberg The US government will nearly double the amount it pays hospitals and medical centers to run Abbott Laboratories’ large-scale coronavirus tests, an incentive to get facilities to hire more technicians and expand testing that fallen significantly short of machines’ potential. Abbott’s m2000 machines, which can process up to 1 million tests per week, haven’t been fully used because not ...