17/02/2026

BIZ & FINANCE TUESDAY | FEB 17, 2026

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India forced to defend US trade deal

MUMBAI: India is scrambling to defend a new trade deal with the United States that critics have branded as a surrender to Washington, as countries navigate the fallout from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs. The deal announced this month has rattled India’s powerful farmers’ unions, who argue that cheap US imports would throttle local producers in a country where agriculture employs more than 700 million people. Details of the deal remain sparse, limited to a joint statement and a White House factsheet, but New Delhi says an interim pact should be finalised by the end of March. Analysts warn that other elements of the agreement could also prove volatile. “In the Trumpian era, there is nothing called certainty,” trade expert Abhijit Das told AFP. Even if the deal is signed in a few weeks, it would only hold until Trump “decides to impose more tariffs for any perceived inconsistency”, he said. The most contentious pledge is India’s stated intention to buy US$500 billion (RM1.9 trillion) worth of US goods over five years. India’s annual imports from the US last fiscal year were around US$45 billion. Doubling annual purchases to US$100 billion “is unrealistic”, said Ajay Srivastava of the Global Trade Research Initiative, a New Delhi-based think tank. Aircraft purchases were a major component of this commitment but even a major expansion of Boeing aircraft orders – decisions made by private airlines – would fall far short, he said. “Even if India were to add another 200 Boeing aircraft over the next five years, at an estimated cost of US$300 million per aircraft, the total value would be about US$60 billion.” Some economists argue the language around purchases is non-binding, hence it protects New Delhi if it fails to meet the goal. “Framing the target as an intention, rather than a commitment, reduces the risk of the deal later breaking down,” Shivaan Tandon of Capital Economics said in a note on Friday. Trump’s unpredictability also continues to loom large. He recently threatened higher tariffs o Critics brand agreement as unrealistic and a surrender to Washington

Commuters walk past cutouts of French President Emmanuel Macron and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday ahead of the French leader’s visit to Mumbai. – AFPPIC

economic outlook remained challenging. “We doubt fiscal policy will provide sustained support as authorities remain committed to tight fiscal targets,”Tandon said in a note. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Thailand’s GDP grew by 2.5% year-on-year, picking up pace from the previous quarter, NESDC figures showed. But Tandon said despite the “quarter of broad-based strength, we expect growth to soften again, reflecting both cyclical headwinds and structural constraints”. – AFP “This is one of the largest and most complex offshore restructurings by a Chinese issuer, in terms of the size of the total debt as well as the number and diversity of creditors,”Linklaters said in a statement. Country Garden announced last week that its chairman Yang Huiyan, co-chairman Mo Bin and chief financial officer Wu Bijun received a “decision on disciplinary action” from the Shanghai Stock Exchange over a failure to disclose overdue debts. – AFP “New Delhi continues to avoid publicly confirming a full halt and frames energy sourcing as driven by price and availability, which underlines ongoing ambiguity over the oil plank,” Darren Tay of BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, told AFP. “There is tentative evidence that Indian refiners are reducing spot purchases of Russian crude, implying partial adjustment rather than a formal pledge,” Tay said. The deal remains “too fragile and politically contested” to justify a growth forecast change for India, he added. – AFP

supporting factors including the expansion of private consumption, government spending and the recovery of tourism,”NESDC secretary general Danucha Pichayanan told a press conference. Ahead of the Feb 8 general election, all three major parties offered various populist handouts and socioeconomic policies to boost the economy. Shivaan Tandon, Asia economist at Capital Economics, said the election outcome should “reduce near-term political risk”, but the country’s creditors spoke in court. Country Garden said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing last year that its restructuring scheme was approved by the court on Dec 4. The company announced in a later filing that “the Restructuring Effective Date has occurred on 30 December 2025”. Law firm Linklaters said at the time that it had advised the Chinese property developer in “the successful restructuring of approximately US$17.7 billion of its offshore debt”. dropped from a mid-2025 peak of more than two million barrels a day to 1.1 million in January. Local reports say state-owned refiners have already started purchasing Venezuelan oil for delivery in April. But it remains unclear if Russian purchases will fall to zero. The outlook hinges heavily on Mumbai-based Nayara Energy, partly owned by Russia’s Rosneft, which Bloomberg reported plans to keep buying 400,000 barrels a day. This will likely remain a bone of contention, given the Trump administration’s stance that it intends to monitor India’s imports.

on South Korea over perceived delays by Seoul in implementing a trade agreement announced last July. Another flashpoint is Washington’s rollback of a 25% duty after what it described as India’s “commitment” to stop buying Russian oil. This promise finds no mention in the joint statement and has neither been confirmed nor denied by the Indian government. India says its energy policy is driven by national interests and that the country depends on multiple sources for crude oil imports. New Delhi’s Russian oil imports have

Thailand economic growth slows year-on-year BANGKOK: Thailand’s economic growth slowed last year, official figures showed yesterday, with the incoming government facing a struggling tourism sector and declining private and public consumption. council said, also below the previous year. Exports rose 11.9% compared to 4.4% in 2024, despite global uncertainty amid a slew of US tariff announcements last year.

Growth in the Southeast Asian nation is anaemic, with the tourism sector vital but arrivals yet to return to their pre-Covid highs, and fast-growing Vietnam is now attracting more foreign direct investment. “Thailand has adjusted this year’s growth forecast to between 1.5% to 2.5%, with

The economy expanded by 2.4% last year compared with 2.9% growth in 2024, the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) said. Private and government consumption grew in 2025 by 2.7% and 0.6%, the

Hong Kong court dismisses bid to liquidate Country Garden HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court dismissed a petition to liquidate Chinese property giant Country Garden yesterday, weeks after the firm said it had restructured its massive offshore debt obligations. firm reported total liabilities of 885.4 billion yuan (RM499 billion) as of the end of last June. The company’s shares in Hong Kong continued to trade near all-time lows, having showed little signs of recovery after a nine-month trading suspension was lifted in January 2025.

Country Garden was once China’s largest real estate developer, propping up a crucial sector for national economic growth before it and industry peers such as Evergrande, Vanke and Kaisa were hit with protracted debt struggles. The Guangdong province-headquartered

High Court judge Linda Chan took less than a minute yesterday to dismiss the petition, which was initiated in 2024 by Country Garden creditor Ever Credit Limited. No representative from the developer or its