Amid the ruins of a city ravaged by World War II, Karl Haeusgen’s grandfather invented a hydraulic pump he was so proud of that he founded a company to sell it, the New York Times reported. Back then, there were no revenue projections or five-year growth strategies. The plan was survival: “It was just about grabbing chances,” Mr. Haeusgen said. Seven decades and three generations later the family business, Hawe Hydraulics, ships some 2,500 parts around the globe. Instead of scrambling for sales, though, Mr. Haeusgen must parse the geopolitics of an ever more polarized world.
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Liu Zhongtian, who founded Zhongwang Group and built it into Asia's biggest maker of aluminum extrusion products while launching himself onto the Forbes list of China's richest billionaires, now finds himself under legal restraint with his company in bankruptcy and much of his wealth evaporated, Nikkei Asia reported. What went wrong? Zhongwang was set to file a reorganization plan on June 20, nine months after creditors applied for a bankruptcy restructuring of the manufacturer's hundreds of subsidiaries and affiliates.
MSCI's global equities index lost ground on Wednesday after weaker-than-expected overseas data and as investors monitored a heating up of American-Chinese trade tensions while they awaited upcoming U.S. economic data and second-quarter earnings, Reuters reported. Investors shrugged off U.S. Federal Reserve meeting minutes released on Wednesday that showed a Fed united in its June meeting decision to hold interest rates steady to buy time to assess whether further hikes would be needed. Minutes also showed most members expecting more policy tightening eventually.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s elevation of a long-serving technocrat as the central bank’s top Communist Party official signals policy makers will avoid any drastic shifts for now as the world’s second-biggest economy struggles to regain momentum, Bloomberg News reported. Pan Gongsheng’s appointment Saturday as party chief of the People’s Bank of China indicates the bank will stay the course, consistent with its recent approach of only modestly cutting interest rates and encouraging banks to lend more to targeted areas.
China's factory activity growth slowed in June, a private sector survey showed on Monday, with sentiment waning and recruitment cooling as firms grew increasingly concerned about sluggish market conditions, Reuters reported. The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) eased to 50.5 in June from 50.9 in May, indicating a marginal expansion in activity. The 50-point index mark separates growth from contraction. The figure, combined with Friday's official survey that showed factory activity extending declines, adds to evidence the world's No.
China’s central bank vowed to step up efforts to stabilize the nation’s currency after it dropped toward the lowest level in 15 years amid concern about the strength of the Chinese economic rebound, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China said late Friday Beijing time that it will adopt “comprehensive measures and stabilize expectations” about the currency. The PBOC will also “resolutely prevent risks of big fluctuations,” it said in its quarterly monetary policy report.
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China’s long-running battle to stabilize its shaky real-estate market appears to be entering a troubling new phase, with data showing waning demand as a wave of home listings hits the market, the Wall Street Journal reported. Shoring up the market is crucial for Beijing: Real estate accounts for as much as a quarter of economic activity in China. It is also the primary source of wealth for everyday Chinese.
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The value of Chinese debt relief decreased by over 50% between 2021 and 2022, a report from Rhodium Group showed, with Angola alone receiving two thirds of deferrals despite China backing multilateral efforts to standardise support for poor countries, Reuters reported. As the world's largest bilateral creditor, China is central to talks on making tangible progress in providing debt relief to emerging and frontier markets through the Group of 20-led "Common Framework" as well as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Ant Group said that they would allow users to link international credit cards to their platforms, an issue that has long plagued foreign visitors as the country’s payment system has kept credit cards out for years, Reuters reported. Tencent, operator of the popular chat app WeChat and payment network WeChat Pay, said on Wednesday that WeChat users overseas can link credit cards issued by Visa Inc to their WeChat app from next month. Foreign tourists can then pay with WeChat when traveling in mainland China.
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China’s local government funding problems last year were even worse than most economists thought. At least $12 billion worse. That is the boost Chinese local governments got to their revenues after a series of fictitious sales of land and other state-owned assets, according to the country’s national audit office, the Wall Street Journal reported. The disclosure means that even the official data, which showed a sharp drop in land sales and local government revenues last year, painted a more positive picture than was accurate.
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