Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. said that it doesn’t hold any shares in Country Garden Holdings Co. and has no plans to acquire the distressed Chinese developer, refuting a report that sent the insurance giant’s stock tumbling on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported. The insurer said in a Shanghai Stock Exchange filing that it hasn’t received any suggestions or requests from any government agency to take over Country Garden, responding to a Reuters report that China’s State Council instructed the government of Guangdong province to ask Ping An to take a controlling stake in the developer.
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The list of business executives and political figures who have gone missing in China keeps growing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Top executives at a video-streaming platform and a pharmaceutical company were the latest to disappear, as an intensifying clampdown by Beijing on alleged corruption and malfeasance shakes business confidence in China, among local and foreign firms alike. Chen Shaojie, chief executive of livestreaming firm DouYu, has been unreachable since October, a person familiar with the matter said.
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The Bank of Japan may end its negative interest rate policy as early as January, and keep raising short-term borrowing costs if the economy can weather risks from overseas uncertainties, said former central bank executive Eiji Maeda, Reuters reported. The BOJ last month revised up its price estimates to project inflation to hit 1.9% in both fiscal 2024 and 2025, as measured by an index that strips away the effects of volatile fresh food and fuel costs.
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Chinese authorities have asked Ping An Insurance Group to take a controlling stake in embattled Country Garden, the nation's biggest private property developer, Reuters reported. China's State Council, which is headed by Premier Li Qiang, has instructed the local government of Guangdong province, where both companies are based, to help arrange a rescue of Country Garden by Ping An. A spokesperson for Ping An (601318.SS) said the company had not been approached by the government and denied the information reported by Reuters.
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China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday called on the Netherlands to jointly advance bilateral cooperation in economy, trade, science and technology, innovation and other fields, while maintaining the stability of global industrial and supply chains, Reuters reported. Wang, in a phone call with his Dutch counterpart Hanke Bruins Slot, described the Netherlands as a "gateway" for China's cooperation with Europe, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
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Indonesia sold $2 billion in the form of a US-currency sukuk, its first such issuance in 18 months against the backdrop of a global rise in borrowing costs, Bloomberg News reported. Southeast Asia’s largest economy issued $1 billion of five-year Sharia-compliant notes for general financing, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as they are not authorized to speak about it. It also launched $1 billion worth of 10-year green notes for expenditure as outlined under its sustainable securities framework.
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The International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday of risks posed by China’s financial and property sectors even as it took a more optimistic view on the country’s economic growth, the New York Times reported. The IMF forecast that China’s economy will expand 5.4 percent this year and 4.6 percent in 2024. Each estimate was 0.4 percentage points higher than the fund had predicted four weeks earlier.
Japanese manufacturers' business confidence improved for the first time since August while service-sector mood rose for a second month, according to the Reuters Tankan poll, which also highlighted a challenging outlook amid a patchy economic recovery, Reuters reported. The monthly poll mirrored a similar improvement seen in the third quarter in the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) closely-watched quarterly tankan survey.
After lending $1.3 trillion to developing countries, mainly for big-ticket infrastructure projects, China has shifted its focus to bailing out many of those same countries from piles of debt, the New York Times reported. The initial loans were mostly part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, started in 2013 to build stronger transportation, communications and political links in more than 150 countries. But now the two main Chinese state banks that provided most of the infrastructure loans have reduced their new lending.
The Unification Church’s Japanese branch announced plans Tuesday to set aside a fund up to 10 billion yen ($67 million) to cover possible compensation for those seeking damages they say were caused by the group’s manipulative fundraising tactics, the Associated Press reported. The move is seen as an attempt to allay any suspicion that the group would try to avoid later payouts by hiding assets overseas while a government-requested dissolution order is pending.