Cash-strapped Chinese solar panel maker Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd is seeking to sell some assets and bring in a strategic investor to repay debt and revitalise the company, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. "It is looking for buyers for some of its projects and downstream assets," said the source, who asked not to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to the media. "It is also seeking to bring in a strategic investor to take a stake in the company." "Suntech is in dire need of cash," the source added.

Cyprus yielded only to rich Luxembourg among euro-area countries in household wealth rankings as recently as 2010, while Germans were the statistical paupers in the bloc, according to data released by the European Central Bank on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported. The study, the first of its kind, is bound to fan indignation in Germany and other northern members of the currency union who see themselves as being the paymasters for heavily indebted southern countries, like Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Portugal, that have all sought international bailouts.

China’s sovereign credit rating has been cut by a major international agency for the first time since 1999 with Fitch raising concerns on Tuesday that the country’s rising debt problems will require a government bailout, the Financial Times reported. Fitch downgraded China’s long-term local currency rating from AA- to A+, citing a number of “underlying structural weaknesses” in the Chinese economy, including low average incomes, lagging standards of governance, and a rapid expansion of credit.

The sudden tumble of Cyprus from sun-kissed prosperity into bleak penury must certainly have felt precipitate to many of its citizens – more like a scalping than a haircut, the Financial Times reported. But the collapse is not really the result of a random lurch or shift in axis. It is the end of a path traced in a long, complacent arc of ease and sleaze that hit a wall. It is almost 40 years since the east Mediterranean island was traumatised by partition.

China’s local governments may have more than 20 trillion yuan ($3.2 trillion) of debt, former Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng said, almost double the figure given in a 2011 report by the National Audit Office, Bloomberg reported. The combined debt of China’s central governments and the nation’s provinces and cities may currently be more than 30 trillion yuan, Xiang, who served as finance minister from 1998 to 2003, said at the Boao Forum for Asia. Local governments had 10.7 trillion yuan of debt at the end of 2010, the auditor said in its report.

New Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda quickly and dramatically put his stamp on the long-beleaguered central bank, implanting a policy grand in substance and simple in presentation—a stark contrast with his predecessor, who favored incremental steps, emphasizing the complexity and the risks, The Wall Street Journal reported. Using placards with bright red print to explain the complex package of new policies, Mr. Kuroda boiled it all down to the number two: 2% inflation in two years by doubling the bank's purchase of bonds and doubling the monetary base.

European officials have been determined to mend the region's financial market after seeing it torn apart along national lines during the economic crisis. That effort suffered a blow with the radical surgery prescribed for Cyprus's banks as part of March's bailout deal, The Wall Street Journal Brussels Beat blog reported. The agreement will see large depositors in Cyprus's two big, internationally active banks absorb steep losses. Money transfers to and from the island are now sharply restricted.

According to Cyprian newspaper Fileleftheros, Cyprus Airways is about to fold. Because of the cutting of government funds the Cyprian airline company is facing bankruptcy, Fileleftheros reports. According to the newspaper, the Ministers for Traffic, Trade and Labor presented three scenarios about the future of the crippled company: the immediate shutdown of the corporation, the liquidation after the holiday season in summer or the continuing of the air traffic.

Cyprus's bank restructuring, a condition for international aid it needed to stave off bankruptcy, will force the Mediterranean island to scramble for new ways to generate wealth, Reuters reported in an analysis. If it fails, international lenders may have to do what they wanted to avoid and which Germany and its northern European allies may baulk at - give Cyprus more money. Nicosia will get 10 billion euros (8.58 billion pounds) over three years from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund.

Suntech Power Holdings Co., forced to put its Chinese solar unit into bankruptcy last month, began that slide into insolvency in 2009 when customers linked to the founder couldn’t pay their bills and the company booked the sales as revenue anyway, regulatory filings show, Bloomberg reported. Seven buyers backed by an investment firm funded by Suntech and its founder, Shi Zhengrong, accounted for 29 percent of Suntech’s uncollected bills as 2009 ended, according to correspondence between the solar company and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.