Chinese industrial activity has snapped back to pre-coronavirus growth levels, with factory surveys hitting multi-year highs in November, but the headline expansion masks struggles for smaller firms and looming pressures for exporters, Reuters reported. Readings from the official and Caixin’s Purchasing Managers Indexes hit three- and 10-year highs respectively last month, a reflection of the industrial sector’s strong overall recovery. Official data also shows industrial profits for large firms grew at their fastest pace since 2017 in October.

As debt defaults for state-owned enterprises in China rise, international investors find themselves in what for most is a new place: Chinese bankruptcy courts, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. That may be just the right venue for them, debtors and regulators to meet and take a crucial step toward a better functioning economy. Investors have been spending years to recover their money out of court, but China’s bankruptcy law has now gained enough critical mass to test in modern markets.

Shares of Evergrande Property Services fell marginally on their Hong Kong debut on Wednesday, shedding initial gains as the spinoff of China’s second-largest property developer struggled to shake off worries about debt and competition, Reuters reported. Concerns about the financial health of its parent, China Evergrande Group, have clouded Hong Kong’s third-largest listing of the year, with China’s most indebted developer planning to use half the $1.8 billion raised for its own debt repayment.

China’s credit rating agencies are standing by their triple A scores for troubled state-owned enterprises, even as a series of defaults reverberates through the country’s $4tn corporate debt market, the Financial Times reported. Just five Chinese companies out of more than 5,000 have been downgraded to below double A ratings by domestic rating agencies since Yongcheng Coal and Electricity Holding Group, one of the country’s largest coal groups, kicked off a spate of defaults last month, according to data provider Wind.

International investors have cried foul over the sale of an insolvent finance company in India due to concerns surrounding the auction process, casting doubt on the effectiveness of the country’s overhauled bankruptcy code, the Finanical Times reported. The controversy stems from the auction of shadow lender Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL), a company with about $14bn of debt that was taken over last year by India’s central bank, in a process widely viewed as a test of new bankruptcy rules brought in four years ago.

China’s Tianqi Lithium Corp said on Monday it had signed a letter with a syndicate of banks to extend by a month the maturity date on $1.884 billion of loans that were due for repayment at the end of November, Reuters reported. Tianqi, one of the world’s top producers of lithium chemicals used in electric-vehicle batteries, had repeatedly said its operations could be severely impacted if it did not repay the money, which was used to acquire a 23.8% stake in Chilean miner SQM in 2018, by the due date.

More than two-thirds of mortgage and personal loans that had principal and interest repayments deferred due to the impact of Covid-19 were now "back to normal", says the New Zealand Bankers' Association, the New Zealand Herald reported. At the same time, nearly 40 per cent of those loans that had reduced repayments were now back on track. In March, in consultation with the government, the Reserve Bank and credit reporting agencies, all New Zealand retail banks offered loan deferrals for up to six months and reduced loan repayments to customers financially impacted by the Covid-19

India’s economy contracted 7.5 per cent year-on-year in the quarter ending September, taking it into a technical recession as strict lockdown measures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic continued to weigh on output, the Financial Times reported. The performance was better than many analysts had forecast but still reflected the heavy blow the pandemic has delivered to what was recently the world’s fastest-growing large economy.

Zambia’s state mining arm ZCCM-IH plans to appeal a court ruling in favour of Vedanta , which has sought arbitration in a dispute over its jointly owned copper mine that is facing liquidation, the mining minister said. India-based Vedanta has been locked in a protracted dispute with the Zambian government since May 2019, when Lusaka appointed a liquidator for the mine. “ZCCM-IH has already indicated that they are appealing because they are not happy with the court judgment,” Mining Minister Richard Musukwa told parliament on Thursday. Last week, a Zambian court ordered a halt

Airlines are on course to lose a total $157 billion this year and next, their main global body warned on Tuesday, further downgrading its industry outlook in response to a second wave of coronavirus infections and shutdowns afflicting major markets, Reuters reported. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which in June had forecast $100 billion in losses for the two-year period, said it now projects a $118.5 billion deficit this year alone, and a further $38.7 billion for 2021.