China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in 24 years in 2014 as property prices cooled and companies and local governments struggled under heavy debt burdens, keeping pressure on Beijing to take aggressive steps to avoid a sharper downturn, the Irish Times reported. For investors worried about growth in China and the world this year, the data poses two questions: Will the soft numbers and expectations of further weakness force the central bank to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into banks system-wide to prop up growth?

Shares in some mid-size Chinese real estate developers fell sharply on Thursday, as fears grew that the troubles hitting Kaisa Group could spread to other firms in the sector, Reuters reported. Local government officials blocking real estate sales and anti-corruption probes are adding to worries about the prospects of companies in China's already highly leveraged property industry. Shanghai developer Glorious Property Holdings fell as much as 35 pct on Thursday, while China South City Holdings was down 10 pct.

China’s 40m public sector employees are to lose their exemption from paying into the state pension system, as the government looks to curb public outrage over excess benefits for civil servants, the Financial Times reported. China’s dual-track urban pension system — in which corporate employees must contribute 8 per cent of their salary to the pension system but government employees contribute nothing — has been a source of populist outrage for years. The State Council, China’s cabinet, on Wednesday announced a long-awaited plan that will move to equalise the two systems.

The Cabinet yesterday gave the nod to the fourth of five government bills comprising a package of bankruptcy-related legislation, The Cyprus Mail reported. Collectively known as the insolvency framework, the bills are designed to update and amend personal and corporate bankruptcy laws to help borrowers restructure their debt. Enactment of the new legislation, designed primarily to reduce banks’ exposure to bad loans, is an obligation stemming from Cyprus’ bailout agreement with international lenders. Three other bills have already been submitted to the House.

Rising failures in China’s peer-to-peer lending industry may pressure authorities to regulate a segment of Internet finance that almost quadrupled in size last year, Bloomberg News reported. The number of platforms that went bankrupt or had difficulty repaying money climbed to 275 in 2014 from 76 a year earlier, according to Yingcan Group, which tracks China’s more than 1,500 online lending sites. Last month, police started investigating the originator of two Sina Corp. wealth products for illegal fundraising.

For China’s property market bears, the default by a Hong Kong-listed developer on its US dollar bonds looks like the canary in the coal mine. More are likely to follow, they argue, as the great unravelling of the heavily indebted and chronically oversupplied sector finally gets under way. Even some of the more sanguine observers see the recent bond and loan repayment failures by Shenzhen-based Kaisa as potentially part of a broader trend in China’s property sector, the Financial Times reported.

Australians are experiencing fewer financial crises, new personal insolvency statistics have revealed, The Adviser reported. There were 6,888 personal insolvency incidents in the December 2014 quarter, according to the Australian Financial Security Authority. That marked an 8.1 per cent decline on the December 2013 quarter. Debt agreements climbed 2.5 per cent to 2,655, with South Australia and the Northern Territory reaching all-time highs.

Bonds issued by Kaisa Group rose sharply on Tuesday after the embattled Chinese property developer said it had received a waiver from HSBC Holdings on a loan it failed to repay late last month. Kaisa, which has been struggling with the departure of senior executives, government officials blocking sales at some of its projects in the southern city of Shenzhen and a missed coupon payment on an offshore bond, made the announcement late on Monday. Market participants are watching Kaisa closely as it could become the first Chinese company to make an outright default on its offshore U.S.

Japanese corporate bankruptcies fell in 2014 to the lowest level since the final year of Japan’s asset bubble, as a government request for banks to alter loan conditions for smaller firms helped companies stay afloat, Bloomberb News reported. Business failures slid 10.4 percent in 2014 from a year earlier to 9,731 cases, the fewest since 1990, Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. said in Tokyo today. There were no bankruptcies among listed firms last year for the first time in 24 years.

While Australia’s commodities boom was running hot, it wasn’t only mining companies that benefited from the billions of dollars in investment pouring into the country. Airlines got a boost, too, The Wall Street Journal reported. That has changed as slumping commodity prices and reduced investment prompt fewer builders and pit-workers to travel to remote mine sites. The result: several operators of smaller aircraft, such as lightweight jets and turboprops, are going bust, while others are warning of a severe hit to profits.