Qingdao city in China's debt-laden Shandong province has set up a company to bail out its cash-strapped local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), sources said, as regional governments rush to reduce debt risks in a wobbly economy, Reuters reported. Dongdin Industrial Group, funded by policy lender China Development Bank and having a registered capital of 10 billion yuan ($1.40 billion), is tasked with providing liquidity support to Qingdao's LGFVs - vehicles set up by local governments to finance mainly infrastructure projects, two sources said.

Desperate for capital and with their economies struggling, China’s cities are wooing Western businesses with previously unavailable goodies. Beijing has labeled 2023 the “Year of Investing in China” and local officials have embarked on promotional tours overseas to drum up interest from investors. That effort is running headlong into President Xi Jinping’s national-security agenda, with its focus on fending off perceived foreign threats, the Wall Street Journal reported. That has made any Chinese investment a potential minefield for foreign firms.

China's exports fell last month at their fastest pace since the onset three years ago of the COVID-19 pandemic, as an ailing global economy puts mounting pressure on Chinese policymakers for fresh stimulus measures, Reuters reported. Momentum in China's post-COVID recovery has slowed after a brisk pickup in the first quarter, with analysts now downgrading their projections for the economy for the rest of the year.

China's economy is slowing due to weaker private investment, slowing exports and reduced domestic demand after a strong performance in the first quarter as the economy reopened from COVID-19 lockdowns, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday, Reuters reported. "So the overall picture for growth in China is one of a slowing economy and that is consistent with the forecast that we had in April," IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack told a regular news briefing, adding that the Fund was observing "subdued" inflation in China.

China’s housing market is weakening again. But as worrying as that is for the nation’s growth, it may be a symptom of a much larger, thornier problem, according to a commentary in the Wall Street Journal. After a rebound at the beginning of the year in the wake of China’s reopening, the country’s property market has resumed its downward trend: Both sales and prices have started to fall again.

China’s new loans accelerated in June after a central bank interest rate cut in the middle of the month aimed at boosting credit demand, Bloomberg News reported. Aggregate financing, a broad measure of credit, was 4.2 trillion yuan ($583 billion), the People’s Bank of China said Tuesday. That was higher than the median estimate of 3.1 trillion yuan in a Bloomberg survey of economists, and compares with 5.2 trillion yuan in the same month a year ago.

China's producer prices fell at their fastest pace in over seven years in June, while consumer prices teetered on the edge of deflation, adding to the case for policymakers to use more stimulus to revive sluggish demand, Reuters reported. The worsening factory-gate price deflation and the move by consumer prices towards deflation for the first time since February 2021 bode ill for China's economic growth.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen appealed to China’s No. 2 leader to not let frustration over U.S. curbs on access to processor chips and other technology disrupt economic cooperation during a visit Friday aimed at improving strained relations, the Associated Press reported. Meeting with Premier Li Qiang, Yellen said Washington and Beijing have a duty to cooperate on issues that affect the world. She appealed for “regular channels of communication” at a time when relations are at their lowest in decades due to disputes over technology, security and other irritants.

China’s inflation remained close to zero in May, sparking concerns on a falling spiral in prices and prompting the central bank to come out to downplay worries on the economic outlook, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 0.2% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday, in line with forecasts and up from 0.1% in April. Producer prices declined 4.6% on the back of lower commodity prices and weak domestic and foreign demand.