In a major step to facilitate and grow trade and investment between Canada and the People's Republic of China, the two countries signed a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) in September 2012. The FIPA has now been ratified by both countries, after a significant delay in Canada, and will come into force on October 1, 2014. The agreement is the product of negotiations that commenced in 1994.

In a major step to facilitate and grow trade and investment between Canada and the People's Republic of China, the two countries signed a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) in September 2012. The FIPA has now been ratified by both countries, after a significant delay in Canada, and will come into force on October 1, 2014. The agreement is the product of negotiations that commenced in 1994.

A financial crisis in China has become inevitable. If it happens soon, its effects can be contained. But, if policy makers use further doses of stimulus to postpone the day of reckoning, a severe collapse will become unavoidable within a few years, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The country is in the middle of by far the largest monetary expansion in history.

A default of the “Credit Equals Gold #1” trust product has been avoided. What happens in the coming months will either push China closer towards a financial crisis or help it gradually step back from the edge, Forbes reported. The lack of details that emerged from the trust bailout will undoubtedly draw criticism from foreign investors and analysts alike. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. told investors that they could sell the rights in the RMB 3 billion product issued by China Credit Trust Co. to an unidentified buyer at a price equal to the value of the principal.

In this latest issue of Global Insight, our global Restructuring team reports and comments on breaking legal developments in restructuring law across borders and in jurisdictions around the world. http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/a8d990fd#/a8d990fd/1

China's communists have to stop discriminating against the workers, The Wall Street Journal reported. A migrant-worker tribe that swelled to 158 million in 2011 from 25 million in 1990 has been a key contributor to China's rapid growth. The move from the farm to the factory expanded the work force, increased productivity and supercharged China's export competitiveness. The fear is that after decades of migration, the store of rural workers is close to exhausted.

In this village in the cornfields outside Beijing, a 74-year-old woman whiles away the time in the forecourt of a local eatery, chatting to the owner stacking chairs around her. She can enjoy an unhurried retirement thanks to the money her daughter sends, the monthly pension her husband collects from his former employer, and, in the past few years, a small pension, now worth 275 yuan ($44) a month, from the Beijing municipal government. Public pensions are fairly new to China’s countryside, The Economist reported in an analysis.

In the debate over what policies can reinvigorate China's economy, which grew at its slowest rate since 2009 in the second quarter, many are questioning whether large commercial banks should lead the charge, The Wall Street Journal reported in an interview. Jiang Chaoliang, the leader of one of the country's four major state-controlled banks—he now has more than six months under his belt as chairman of Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.—spoke with Wen Qiu of Caixin recently about the role of big banks in the current complex economic environment and how to take advantage of this window o

The world's banker One wonders what the world will look like when the music stops, The Globe and Mail reported. China, the economic engine of the post-recession era, has already been on a buying spree, striking deals around the world largely in the resources sector. It's also the biggest foreign holder of America's debt, and has helped buoy other countries and companies.

Even before the financial crisis made a mockery of credit ratings, there was always a bit of a mystery over what exactly made for an AAA entity, The Economist Schumpeter blog reported. Broadly, it was seen as a statement of corporate solidity–the hallmark of an entity with an enduring franchise. Writ small, it suggested an ability to honour financial commitments forever. Confidence that this sort of description fit America has recently been shaken. Is it possible that China’s mighty rail industry could be the repository of such trust? The standard is not, of course, absolute.