Sunac China Holdings Ltd. received bondholder approval for an extension on its domestic debt, according to people familiar with the matter, buying the developer more time to deal with its liquidity crunch amid improved policy support, Bloomberg News reported. The company’s Sunac Real Estate unit secured an agreement from debt holders to extend maturities on nine onshore notes and an asset-backed security worth about 16 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) in total, the people said, requesting not to be identified because the matter is private.

People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on Wednesday that a high amount of foreign currency it has bought recently was a result of commercial banks converting their foreign exchange holdings with the central bank into yuan reserves, Reuters reported. China's central bank bought a net 63.6 billion yuan ($9.24 billion) worth of foreign exchange in November，according to Reuters calculations based on PBOC data released earlier on Wednesday, marking the biggest net purchases since October 2014.

Chinese regulators have said e-commerce giant Alibaba’s finance affiliate Ant Group can raise $1.5 billion for its consumer finance unit in an important step forward after the government called off a planned IPO two years ago and ordered the firm to restructure, the Associated Press reported. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) in the southwestern city of Chongqing said in a notice dated Dec. 30 that Ant’s consumer credit unit had gained approval to increase its capital to 18.5 billion yuan ($2.7 billion) from 8 billion yuan ($1.16 billion).

A tender for the sale of embattled China Evergrande Group's headquarters in Hong Kong has lapsed again, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday, because the offer prices and terms fell short of requirements, Reuters reported. Lenders to the office tower, China Evergrande Centre, valued at between HK$8 billion and HK$9 billion ($1.02 billion and $1.15 billion), appointed a receiver in September to seize the asset and tender it for sale with a bid deadline of Oct 31.

Three weeks after Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, tried to reinvigorate China’s stalled economy by abruptly abandoning his stringent pandemic restrictions, he struck an upbeat note in his annual New Year’s Eve address. “China’s economy has strong resilience, great potential and vitality,” he said. But that optimism is hard to find in downtown Guangzhou, the commercial hub of southern China, the New York Times reported. Nearly three years of “zero Covid” measures have crushed businesses. Streets are lined with shuttered stores and workshops.

China's factory activity shrank for the third straight month in December and at the sharpest pace in nearly three years as COVID infections swept through production lines across the country after Beijing's abrupt reversal of anti-virus measures, Reuters reported. The official purchasing managers' index (PMI) fell to 47.0 from 48.0 in November, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Saturday. Economists in a Reuters poll had expected the PMI to come in at 48.0. The 50-point mark separates contraction from growth on a monthly basis.

China will seize the time window to implement policy measures to support the economy, aiming for an improvement in growth in early 2023, state media on Wednesday quoted the cabinet as saying, Reuters reported. The government in recent months has rolled out a flurry of policy measures to support growth, focusing on infrastructure spending and limited support for consumers, while loosening financing curbs to rescue the property sector. "There is still room for these policies and measures to release their effects," state media quoted the cabinet as saying after a regular meeting.

The World Bank has cut its China growth outlook for this year and next, citing the impact of the abrupt loosening of strict COVID-19 containment measures and persistent property sector weakness, Reuters reported. The Washington, D.C.-based lender, in a report released on Tuesday, said it expected China's economy to grow 2.7% in 2022, before recovering to 4.3% in 2023 as it reopens following the worst of the pandemic. The bank's expected expansion for 2022 would be well below the official target of around 5.5%.

China Evergrande Group's shareholding in its property services unit has fallen to 51.71% from 58.18% after forced selling of pledged shares by a third party, a Hong Kong stock exchange filing showed, Reuters reported. The number of Evergrande Property Services Group shares involved was 700 million, and the drop was the result of steps taken on Dec. 14 to enforce rights to the shares held as security against the embattled property developer, the filing said. The last time pledged shares of Evergrande Property Services were enforced was a year ago, when the group's stake decreased from 60.96%.