Asia Pacific

Chinese real estate prices accelerated last month, rising by their fastest pace in two years despite government efforts to cool the market amid fears of a looming property bubble, the Financial Times reported. Prices of commercial and residential property in China’s 70 largest cities rose by 10.7 per cent in February from the same period a year earlier, a marked increase from the 9.5 per cent year-on-year gain in January, according to China’s statistics bureau.

Signs mounted Monday of Chinese authorities' concern about the risk from debt incurred by local governments in projects to help China's economy recover—an issue that is a hot topic at the National People's Congress, now meeting in Beijing, The Wall Street Journal reported. China's leaders have increased scrutiny of this debt over the past months, fearing that local governments won't be able to pay back all their loans. The issue was also highlighted in the Ministry of Finance's budget report released at the start of the annual legislative session on Friday.

The window has reopened for Canberra to acquire the water rights to the nation's biggest irrigator, southwest Queensland's Cubbie cotton station, if voluntary administrators fail to sell the struggling operation. As floodwaters poured into massive dams that can hold enough water to fill Sydney Harbour, promising two full crops of cotton worth up to $280 million, sources told The Australian the administrators were negotiating with the federal government.

Cing, developer of well-known video game titles including Little King’s Story, Another Code (Trace Memory), Monster Rancher, and Hotel Dusk, has filed for bankruptcy due to mounting debts it could not pay, Geek.com reported. The small Japanese developer only had around 30 staff, but managed to produce a number of memorable games on Nintendo’s platforms. Its debts were relatively small, standing at just $2.9 million, but clearly that was too much for such a small company to handle, and now it looks as though it will be forced to close.

Everyone agrees China is in the middle of a spectacular real estate boom. The question is whether it is in the middle of a rapidly growing real estate bubble, The New York Times reported. When other recent booms collapsed — in the United States, for instance — they depressed entire economies. In China’s case, a bursting bubble could affect much of the world. China is the fastest-growing large economy and, so far, a main engine pulling the world out of recession. Beijing is clearly concerned.

A High Court bid by Fletcher Construction to bankrupt New Zealand property developer Nigel McKenna was this morning adjourned by Associate Judge Jeremy Doogue for a hearing on May 6, The National Business Review reported. Mr McKenna’s lawyer John Billington QC told NBR outside the court that Mr McKenna had committed no acts of bankruptcy. McKenna’s Melview Featherston Street company was placed in receivership and liquidation in December after it skipped court ordered payments to Fletcher Construction for building the Wellington Holiday Inn.

The New Zealand company behind stages two and three of Queenstown’s ambitious hotel/apartment development, Kawarau Falls Station, has been placed in receivership, Scene.co.nz reported. Grant Thornton New Zealand Ltd’s Tim Downes and Richard Simpson were appointed receivers and managers of Peninsula Road Ltd on Tuesday this week. The receivership is another blow for Peninsula Road shareholder/director and high-profile Auckland developer Nigel McKenna.

Japan Airlines Corp plans to reduce its work force by 2,700, or about 5 percent, by offering early retirement, the Nikkei business daily reported. JAL, which employs about 51,800 groupwide, aims to let go 1,700 employees at its core unit, Japan Airlines International Co, and the rest at other group firms, the paper said. The carrier, which did not disclose how much severance pay early retirees are to receive, will start with 400 flight crew and ground staff managers, the Nikkei said.

American International Group Inc. is in talks to sell a Hong Kong life insurance division to Prudential Plc for more than $35 billion, marking AIG’s largest asset sale since U.S. taxpayers bailed out the company in 2008, people briefed on the matter said, Bloomberg reported. AIG and Prudential aim to reach an agreement to sell American International Assurance Co. in coming days, although the talks could always collapse, the people said, declining to be identified because the matter is private.

China's central bank favors legalizing some gray-area private lenders and removing ceilings on interest rates, an official said Thursday, changes that would make it easier for the nation's small and private businesses to get loans, The Wall Street Journal reported. The People's Bank of China plans to submit proposals for the regulatory changes to the State Council, or cabinet, as soon as possible, said Zhou Xuedong, director general of the central bank's law and regulation department.