China

The Securities and Exchange Commission is telling American audit firms to be cautious about taking on as new clients Chinese firms that trade in New York, Bloomberg News reported. The warning on Tuesday follows several businesses switching to U.S. auditors amid an ongoing dispute between regulators in Washington and Beijing over access to audit work papers that could lead to about 200 companies being kicked off American stock exchanges.

China said it will accelerate its stimulus rollout in the third quarter as it tries to recover from a second quarter marred by pandemic-related losses, Bloomberg News reported. It’s “crucially important” for the country to adopt supportive policies this quarter, Yang Yinkai, deputy secretary general at the National Development and Reform Commission, told reporters in Beijing on Monday. He was speaking alongside officials from the central bank and other government ministries.

Chinese factory activity shrank and home sales tumbled in August, as the world’s second-largest economy struggled to shake off the impact from Covid-19 flare-ups, its worst heat wave in six decades and a deepening real-estate downturn, the Wall Street Journal reported. As the heat wave led to electricity shortages and production disruptions, manufacturing activity shrank for a second consecutive month, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday.

One of China’s largest developers said the country’s property market has tumbled into a severe depression, using some of the strongest language yet to describe the yearlong downturn and the financial pain it has caused, the Wall Street Journal reported. Country Garden Holdings Co., which for years ranked as China’s top real-estate developer by contracted sales, on Tuesday reported a 96% drop in first-half profit after selling a third fewer homes than it did a year ago.

Global funds that invested in China Evergrande Group's bonds have come up with their own debt restructuring plan for the property developer and demanded that its chair repay liabilities with his own fortune, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, according to Reuters. With more than $300 billion in liabilities, Evergrande, once China's top-selling developer, has been at the centre of the crisis and its debt restructuring plan is seen as a possible template for others.

China is set to step up scrutiny of companies seeking to sell offshore debt, as defaults worsen to record levels and concerns mount about the fallout from dollar strength, Bloomberg News reported. Borrowers including financial firms will be required to register, report and receive approval for issuance of offshore debt with tenors longer than one year from the National Development and Reform Commission, according to a draft for comments posted on the NDRC website and dated Aug. 26. The opinion consultation period is from that day to Sept. 26.

China's three biggest airlines posted on Tuesday a combined 28.4 billion yuan ($4.12 billion) second-quarter loss, wider than in the first quarter, due to major travel disruptions including a strict COVID-related lockdown in Shanghai, Reuters reported. The country's policy of localised lockdowns in response to case numbers that are small by global standards has forced carriers to frequently press the stop button on domestic travel, the main driver for revenue amid border policies that have all but grounded international travel.

Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., the nation’s third-largest bank by assets, said it’s facing 1.23 billion yuan ($178 million) in overdue loans, nearly double a previous estimate, from a mortgage boycott on unfinished projects that has swept the country, Bloomberg News reported. After reporting a small gain in earnings on Monday, the Beijing-based lender revealed that the overdue loans are linked to 1,112 projects. It had previously estimated 660 million yuan in loans were affected by the unprecedented protests.

Shares in China’s privately run banks have fallen sharply this year, as the country’s property slowdown starts to bite, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Shanghai-listed shares of China Merchants Bank and Ping An Bank Co.—two of China’s biggest, most prominent privately run lenders—have fallen by 32% and 25%, respectively, since the start of 2022, wiping $68 billion off their combined stock market value. The selloff is just the latest indication of the problems a slowdown in the property sector is having on the wider economy.

Authorities in central China on Monday announced the arrests of 234 people involved in a scam to bilk people out of their savings with the false promise of high interest rates on deposits in obscure rural banks, the Associated Press reported. The scandal drew national attention after investors seeking answers about where their money went were prevented from reaching the Henan provincial capital of Zhengzhou when the health status displayed on their mandatory COVID-19 cellphone apps was suddenly changed to red, preventing them from traveling.