Officials will increase support for construction of affordable housing and ensure that “loan demand from first-home families” is met, the People’s Bank of China said on its website yesterday, Bloomberg reported. A government clampdown aimed at make housing affordable is cooling prices and driving down transactions as Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis caps export demand. Fitch Ratings said yesterday that a “hard landing” for China’s economy is a key global risk, after the International Monetary Fund cautioned Feb. 6 that a deterioration in Europe could cut the nation’s growth rate almost in half.

Kazakhstan's BTA Bank , majority owned by the country's sovereign wealth fund, on Monday announced the formation of a creditors' steering committee to discuss debt restructuring after the bank defaulted on its $2 billion Eurobond, Reuters reported. The bank, which is restructuring debt for the second time in three years, said the steering committee would comprise holders of senior as well as surbordinated debt, Recovery Notes, discount notes as well as trade finance.

Chinese carmaker Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile has made a 3 billion crowns ($446 million) offer for bankrupt Swedish group Saab which has drawn a cool response from receivers, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Friday, Reuters reported. The receivers want bids for parts of Saab rather than the whole business as that would raise more for creditors, the source said. Saab was declared bankrupt last December after months of efforts to keep it afloat by owner Swedish Automobile. "Youngman made an offer for all of Saab on Monday.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday sought to assuage concerns over Chinese investment in Europe, saying China has no intention to "buy" the continent, The Wall Street Journal reported. At a business forum in the southern province of Guangdong during a state visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr. Wen said China is "willing to cooperate with Europe to fight the current crisis." "Some people say this means China wants to buy Europe. This is a concern and doesn't fit reality,'' he added. "China doesn't have this intention, and doesn't have this ability." Mr.

Listed small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) might face a series of bankruptcies as their holdings of cash reduced significantly last year, The Korea Times reported. According to the Korea Exchange and the Korea Listed Companies Association, the total cashable assets of 612 listed companies in Korea, which settled accounts on Dec. 31, stood at 52.22 trillion won ($46.71 billion), a 3.4 percent decrease from the previous year. Cashable assets include not just cash, but bank deposits and other financial products that could be turned into cash within three months.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said Thursday that China would consider working with the International Monetary Fund to help shore up Europe’s finances. But he left unclear whether China was willing to drop conditions that so far have made its proposed help unappealing to European nations, the International Herald Tribune reported. While Chinese leaders have pledged not to link political demands to financial investments, they have sought concessions, such as getting the European Union to relax trade strictures against low-cost Chinese goods. Mr.

A sharp rise in unsecured loans to households is feared to aggravate the financial status of savings banks that are beset by non-performing loans extended for construction project financing (PF), The Korea Times reported. According to preliminary data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), such loans extended by the secondary financial institutes last year exceeded 10 trillion won ($8.9 billion) for the first time. In September 2009, the amount stood at about 7 trillion won, signifying a 3 trillion won jump in less than two years.

Doubling Japan’s sales tax by 2015 won’t be enough to contain the nation’s growing debt load and the government needs to outline how it will pay for swelling social-welfare expenses, a Standard & Poor’s analyst said, Bloomberg reported. “There’s no way that would be enough,” Takahira Ogawa, director of sovereign ratings at S&P in Singapore, said in a phone interview, referring to the plan to raise the levy by 5 percentage points.

Hong Kong is bracing for more finance-sector job cuts as Western banks, many of which base their regional operations in this business hub, scale back their Asian expansion amid the fallout from Europe's debt crisis and a generally weaker global economy, The Wall Street Journal reported.

China's Premier Wen Jiabao said the nation's government debt is at an "overall safe and controllable" level, that funding for key projects would be ensured and that applying the brakes to the economy would be done in a way to avoid systemic risks, Reuters reported. Wen's comments, reported in the official People's Daily on Monday, were made in a speech dating back to early January at the government's flagship financial work conference. Wen pledged to contain and defuse local government debt risks and avoid the spread of financial risks.