Asia Pacific

China’s wobbly response to the bursting of its stock market bubble, the sudden devaluation of the renminbi and the mystery over the true health of the country’s economy continue to spook investors, large and small, the Financial Times reported. But China’s wealthiest people know exactly what to do in these bewildering times: get some of their money out. More than 60 per cent of wealthy Chinese people surveyed in July by FT Confidential, an investment research service at the FT, said they planned to increase their overseas holdings in the coming two years.

With Australia on the cusp of a “looming liquidity crisis’’, corporate turnaround specialists have urged so-called safe harbour laws to protect directors and their advisers in informal corporate restructurings, The Australian reported. While the proposed reforms have been long pondered in Canberra’s corridors, Turnaround Management Association director Cameron Belyea said there was a heightened urgency ahead of the likely drying up of foreign capital, especially from the US.

Japan’s consumer inflation ground to a halt for the first time in more than two years and household spending unexpectedly fell in July, increasing pressure on policy makers to offer fresh fiscal and monetary support to underpin a fragile recovery. The gloomy data, coupled with soft exports that were blamed on China’s slowdown, reinforces the dominant market view that any rebound in Japan’s growth after the contraction from April to June will be modest.

To protect jobs and plants, the Chinese government and its state-owned banks sometimes keep money-losing businesses on life support by rolling over or restructuring loans, providing fresh credit or offering other aid. While this may seem like an odd business tactic, it is part of a broader strategy to help maintain social stability, a major goal of China’s leadership. Authorities in China’s provinces and cities also back struggling factories just because they are deemed important to the local economy. Similar strategies have been tried before, with little success.

In recent days, an advice column has circulated widely on China’s most popular social media phone app. Titled “Guide on Safe Passage Through the Economic Crisis,” it is aimed at young Chinese urban professionals, the International New York Times reported. Its nuggets of wisdom include: “Work hard at your job so you are the last to be laid off” and “In an economic crisis, liquidity is the number one priority.” Zhang Yuanyuan, 31, a bank teller in Shandong Province, is among the thousands of people who have shared it online.

State owned enterprise minister Todd McClay says Landcorp won't turn a profit for "the next few years" and is again foreshadowing land sales, Stuff.co.nz reported. Record low dairy prices saw profits plunge by $25m, Landcorp said Thursday. It's got debts of around $250 million and is locked into an expensive dairy conversion project of 26,000 hectares at Wairakei, near Taupo. McClay says there will be no taxpayer-funded bailout for the state-owner farmer. And he rejects Labour's comparisons with troubled coal company Solid Energy, which is in voluntary administration.

Signs are emerging that Chinese property investments abroad will maintain their torrid pace despite the market turmoil, as wealthy individuals and well-heeled companies seek to shelter their money in more stable havens abroad. In Australia, where China earlier this year topped the U.S. as the biggest source of foreign real-estate investment, officials are worried that wealthy Chinese investors will pour more money into an already overheated Australian property market.

Boom times for luxury in China are largely over, after the recent stock market rout and currency devaluation, compounded by an already slowing economy and a government crackdown on lavish gift-giving, the International New York Times reported. The effect of those woes on Chinese shoppers — who make up as much as a third of global spending on high-end goods — has rattled both investors and global luxury brands.

China’s central bank on Tuesday cut its benchmark interest rate and freed banks to lend more, the latest signs of the government’s growing distress over slumping stocks and slowing economic growth, the International New York Times reported. The central bank’s action followed a global stock market rout in which China led the declines. The main Shanghai share index plunged an additional 7.6 percent on Tuesday, to its lowest level this year.

The China-led turmoil that has rocked global markets in the past two weeks has also shaken the ruling Communist party and left Li Keqiang, the prime minister, fighting for his political future, according to analysts and people familiar with the internal workings of the party. Among party officials and politically connected people in Beijing, the hottest topic of conversation is whether Mr Li will take the fall for Beijing’s perceived mismanagement of the stock market crash and the country’s broader economic slowdown.