China

China will try hard to achieve the best possible results for the economy this year, state media said on Thursday after a high-level meeting of the ruling Communist Party, dropping previous calls that it will strive to meet its 2022 growth target, Reuters reported. In the second half, China should "stabilise employment and prices, maintain economic operations within a reasonable range, and strive to achieve the best possible results," Xinhua news agency reported, after the 25-member Politburo chaired by President Xi Jinping met to assess the economy.
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China Evergrande Group has only days to unveil its restructuring plan, but even if it meets the deadline, the embattled property developer faces a new and considerable hurdle: A young, politically connected investor who wants to wind down the company unless he gets his money back fast, Bloomberg reported. A business tied to Lin Ho Man, who only a few years ago graduated from the University of California Irvine, filed a petition in Hong Kong to wind down Evergrande if it doesn’t repay HK$862.5 million ($110 million).
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The U.S. public company accounting regulator will not accept any restrictions on its access to the audit papers of Chinese companies listed in New York, including where firms have been delisted, two people with knowledge of the U.S. agency's thinking told Reuters. Washington and Beijing are in talks to settle a long-running dispute over the auditing compliance of U.S.-listed Chinese firms which, if unresolved, could see more than 270 Chinese firms kicked off New York bourses.
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China will launch a real estate fund to help property developers resolve a crippling debt crisis, aiming for a warchest of up to 300 billion yuan ($44 billion) in a bid to restore confidence in the industry, Reuters reported. The move would mark the first major step by the state to rescue the beleaguered property sector since the debt troubles became public last year.
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The clock is ticking for the world’s most indebted developer, whose liquidity woes sparked a broader debt crisis in China’s property industry that’s gone on to engulf more home builders, threaten banks and pose growing challenges for President Xi Jinping, Bloomberg News reported. China Evergrande Group, once the country’s largest real estate firm, previously said it was on track to deliver a preliminary restructuring plan by the end of July. That leaves mere days for the builder with about $300 billion of liabilities, just as a shakeup stirs fresh uncertainties.
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A group of angry suppliers to China Evergrande Group are threatening to stop paying their bank loans to protest the struggling developer's unpaid bills, hitting a property sector already reeling from a mortgage-payment boycott, Nikkei Asia reported. China has seen a wave of debt defaults among real-estate developers including Evergrande, which is saddled with about $300 billion in liabilities.

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The saving opportunity with the rural bank in central China looked, to Sun Song, a 26-year-old-businessman, like a great find, the New York Times reported. It would be linked to his existing account at a large, reputable state-owned bank. The rural bank was also offering high interest rates, making it seem like an ideal place to park his roughly $600,000 in savings. Then the bank abruptly froze his account this year, and officials said they were investigating potential fraud. “I owe money on my credit card and have to repay my car loan,” he said. “I have two sons.

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Two U.S. congresswomen made a bipartisan call for companies to take action to comply with a newly operative U.S. law intended to block the import of goods made with Uyghur forced labor, the Wall Street Journal reported. The remarks underscored congressional concern over enforcement of a law that presumes that goods with ties to Xinjiang, the home region of China’s Uyghur minority, have been made with forced labor. The law, which went into effect last month, gives U.S. Customs and Border Protection the power to stop their import. Reps.

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