Asia Pacific

Photography business PixiFoto is set to announce mass job losses after its parent company Photo Corporation of Australia plunged into administration late last week, News.com.au reported. Staff at the Sydney-based group are currently being briefed by senior management about the dire prospects of the company. Photo Corporation of Australia entered voluntary administration on July 25, with John Morgan and Steven James of BCR Advisory appointed as administrators.

China will conduct an urgent review of overall public debt, highlighting concerns about burgeoning official borrowing that are adding to stress in China's financial system and limiting Beijing's capacity to support flagging growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a one-line statement on Sunday, China's National Audit Office said it would carry out an examination of total government debt, acting on the orders of the State Council, China's cabinet.

India's Lanco Infratech Ltd has started a process to restructure debts totaling 75 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) after economic weakness impacted the performance of some of its businesses such as power and engineering and construction, Reuters reported. If the process is approved by its lenders, Lanco would be the second debt-laden company to go for a major loan restructuring within nine months, after lenders to wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy in November agreed to restructure about 110 billion rupees of its debt.

CapitaLand Ltd., Singapore’s biggest developer, may alter the size of its apartments as it seeks to improve affordability to combat government measures aimed at curbing speculation and lowering prices, Bloomberg reported. The developer sold 139 residential units in the island-state in the three months ended June, 31 percent fewer than in the same period last year, it said yesterday as it forecast “headwinds” in the near term with the housing curbs.

China ordered more than 1,400 companies in 19 industries to cut excess production capacity this year, part of efforts to shift toward slower, more-sustainable economic growth, Bloomberg reported. Steel, ferroalloys, electrolytic aluminum, copper smelting, cement and paper are among areas affected, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a statement yesterday. Excess capacity must be idled by September and eliminated by year-end, the ministry said, identifying the production lines to be shut within factories.

A $91 billion industrial project here, mired in debt and unfulfilled promise, suggests part of the reason why China's economy is wobbling – and why it will be hard to turn around, The Wall Street Journal reported. The steel mill at the heart of Caofeidian, which is outside the city of Tangshan, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Beijing, is losing money. Nearby, an office park planned to be finished in 2010 is a mass of steel frames and unfinished buildings. Work on a residential complex was halted last Christmas, after workers completed the concrete frames.

China’s economy may be facing a period of instability and imbalance as it transitions from high-speed growth, a state researcher said, Bloomberg reported. “Growth inertia should not be underestimated, as new growth engines and patterns have not been formed,” researcher Yu Bin said in a report by China’s Development Research Center released yesterday in London. “Market expectations are unstable, downward pressure has increased, and existing and new structural mismatches exist.

The Cypriot government wants the restructuring of the bailed-out country's biggest bank to be completed by the end of this month, its spokesman said Tuesday, The New Zealand Herald reported on an AP story. Christos Stylianides said that once the restructuring is completed, management of the bank will return to its directors and shareholders.

Chinese state-controlled firm AVIC is to buy the commercial business of German aircraft engine maker Thielert, banking on a surge in demand for diesel plane engines in China and other emerging markets, Reuters reported. AVIC and Thielert, which filed for insolvency more than five years ago, did not provide financial details of the deal announced on Tuesday.

Foreign capital flowed out of China in June as economic growth slowed and a rise in the Chinese currency stalled, contributing to a credit crunch that briefly strained the nation's banking system, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The credit crunch has eased considerably since last month as the central bank injected liquidity in the interbank market, where banks lend funds to each other, but the squeeze raised doubts about the strength of China's banking and financial system. The net outflow of foreign capital in June was the first since November.