General Motors Corp. considers Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. "a formidable bidder" for its Adam Opel GmbH unit, whose offer could threaten an earlier bid by Magna International Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported. GM, which in recent weeks has described Magna as the front-runner to take over the European business, is increasingly attracted to the offer from Beijing Auto, which the Chinese state-owned car maker submitted last week, said a person close to GM.

Tales of the downwardly mobile have become common during the current financial crisis, and South Korea has had more than its share since the global downturn hammered this once fast-growing export economy, The New York Times reported. But they often have a distinctly Korean twist, with former white-collar workers going into more physically demanding work or traditional kinds of manual labor that are relatively well paid here — from farming and fishing to the professional back-scrubbers who clean patrons at the nation’s numerous public bathhouses.

Acting Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard has condemned the Fair Pay Commission's minimum wage freeze as a “disappointing” decision that will cut real wages for the nation's lowest-paid workers, The Australian reported. The minimum wage remains $564.78 a week, despite unions pushing for a $21 rise. Business groups successfully argued for no rise for 1.3 million low-paid workers, warning it would cost jobs. Ms Gillard said although the Government believed minimum wages should be set by an independent umpire, this time the commission had failed to strike the right balance.

China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holding, or BAIC, made a concrete offer for General Motors Corp.'s Adam Opel GmbH unit, a GM spokeswoman said. A person familiar with the situation said Friday that BAIC handed in a nonbinding offer valued at €660 million ($924 million) for an equity stake in GM's Opel and Vauxhall businesses, The Wall Street Journal reported. Under the plan, BAIC would own 51% and GM would keep 49%, the person said. No plants would be closed in Germany, but jobs would be cut, including staff at Opel's headquarters.

Three more bidders are interested in taking a stake in German sports car maker Porsche, rivaling investment plans by Qatar, German magazine Focus reported on Saturday. In an advance release of remarks due to be published on Monday, Focus said without citing sources that a Chinese and a Russian sovereign wealth fund as well as a hedge fund were interested. Porsche, which owns 51 percent in Volkswagen, is seeking an outside investor after amassing €9 billion ($12.6 billion) in debt during a bungled attempt to dominate VW.

India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced plans to borrow a record 4.51 trillion rupees ($93 billion) to fund budget spending on roads, power and aid for the poor, Bloomberg reported. Stocks, bonds and the currency slumped. Unveiling the budget for the year to March 2010, Mukherjee said India’s fiscal deficit is expected to widen to a 16-year high of 6.8 percent of gross domestic product from a revised 6 percent. Indirect taxes will be streamlined through a goods and services tax, he said in his speech in New Delhi today.

New Zealand-born workers in Australia are among the worst hit by job losses as the global financial crisis bites, new research shows. Research published in The Australian newspaper said the number of New Zealanders employed in Australia's workforce had dropped by 20,800 to 304,100 in the year to May. Full-time New Zealand-born workers across the Tasman dropped by 11,000 to 236,700, while part-time workers dropped by 9800 to 67,400. It increased the rate of unemployed New Zealanders in Australia to 7 percent, up 2.8 percent in the year to May.

India’s Economic Survey today prescribed a new bankruptcy law for ensuring speedy disposal of insolvency petitions, the Business Standard reported on a Press Trust of India story. At present, the country does not have any separate bankruptcy law. But, the provisions of bankruptcy are included in the Companies Act, 1956.

China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. plans to present a detailed bid for General Motors Corp.'s Opel unit in Europe within the next few days, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday, a move that could complicate the U.S. auto maker's effort to sell Opel to Canadian supplier Magna International Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported. In May, GM signed a memorandum of understanding to sell a majority stake in Opel and its U.K. sister brand, Vauxhall, to Magna, whose bid is backed by Russia's Sberbank Rossia and auto maker OAO GAZ Group.

Vietnam boasts one of the developing world's most resilient economies this year, but economists fear the success masks serious problems, as loose state-directed lending risks pushing Vietnam into a new speculative bubble, The Wall Street Journal reported. Those concerns were highlighted Tuesday, when Fitch Ratings downgraded Vietnam's local currency rating, citing "a steady deterioration in the country's fiscal position" and a banking system that's "vulnerable to potential systemic stress" as the government floods the economy with credit. Similar worries affect the U.S.