China is weighing how to consolidate financial regulation, following missteps that exacerbated market turmoil and embarrassed Beijing. One option under consideration would empower the central bank, as other countries have done in times of risk, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government has a number of tools for reining in its often freewheeling markets and managing its economy, and it hasn’t shied from using them. But its credibility has been hurt by violent swings in the stock market and unexpected devaluations of the currency over the past year.

The slowdown in world trade has been much worse than previously reported, with global trade volumes plateauing over the past 18 months amid a rise in protectionism, according to a new report, the Financial Times reported. The analysis illustrates why business leaders such as GE’s Jeff Immelt are anxious about trade and the world economy as politicians such as US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rail against “globalism” and promise to erect new barriers to commerce. Policymakers and economists have grown increasingly concerned about a slowdown in global trade growth.

The home to about 3 million people in the northeast rust-belt province of Liaoning is ground zero in China’s slowdown -- the worst-performing city in the worst-performing province, Bloomberg News reported.. Ads offering work visas abroad are peppered across hoardings, and billboards offer loans for people in "urgent need." Shuttered car-parts factories flank the highway to the high-speed train station. In the center, a closed wedding-photograph studio has a notice in the window that reads: "Owner is going overseas.

Soft Chinese inflation and G20 concerns that the global recovery remains grim are hardening views among some economists that more government stimulus will be needed to support China, the world's second-biggest economy, the Irish Times reported. Consumer inflation last month remained under the official target of around 3 percent for this year, data released on Sunday showed, indicating persistently weak domestic demand. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.9 percent in June from a year earlier, compared with a 2.0 percent increase in May, China's National Bureau of Statistics said.

The Chinese government's call to the nation to build an innovation-driven economy from the top down has sparked a rush by local governments to construct new buildings in the name of supporting creativity, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Innovation centres have been popping up around the country and are set to more than double to nearly 5,000 in the next five years, according to internet research firm iiMedia. The only problem for local governments; entrepreneurs are not moving in.

Woosh Wireless' creditors, thought to be owed almost $13 million, have voted to put the troubled internet provider into liquidation, The New Zealand Herald reported. The business was founded in 1999 and has burned through more than $100 million since that time. Grappling with the challenge of its ageing technology, the company had been winding down some of its operations. It sold about 10,000 of its customers to Slingshot last year and still had about 2000 on its books. After trading unprofitably, two Woosh companies were put into voluntary administration in May.

Lenders to Essar Steel Ltd have started discussions to restructure the company’s debt after it failed to meet a June-end deadline to find a buyer, said two people aware of the development. The debt-laden company has been looking for a buyer since November. “There has been a lot of discussion and waiting in this case. Now, the consortium has decided that it is best to restructure the debt and move on. As such, Essar Steel is a non-performing account with a large number of banks in the consortium,” said a banker at a state-owned bank involved in the case, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Australia could lose its rare triple-A credit rating after a tight general election raised questions about the next government’s ability to curb spending and bring down debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. The election remains too close to call, but the prospect of a lengthy period of political instability—such as a hung parliament in the 150-seat House of Representatives, where governments are formed—complicates Australia’s challenge in revving up an economy hit by the end of a decadelong mining boom.

Some $1.3tn in Chinese corporate loans — equivalent to the size of the entire Australian economy — is “at risk” of turning bad, according to the International Monetary Fund. But you would never guess that anything was even slightly amiss in corporate China if you were to consult the country’s homegrown credit rating agencies, the Financial Times reported. Everything is just fine, say the top-10 Chinese credit rating agencies.

India’s central bank has warned that bad loan ratios will continue to rise this year, raising pressure on the government to expand its planned recapitalisation of the banking sector, the Financial Times reported. India’s state-owned banks, which account for nearly three-quarters of banking assets, have been hit hard by a wave of defaults on loans made in recent years to sectors such as infrastructure and steel.