A joint venture between Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing and electric vehicle (EV) maker Li Auto filed bankruptcy on Thursday, after the carmaker ended operations, the South China Morning Post reported. Beijing Judian Travel Technology Co. filed for bankruptcy on Thursday with Beijing No 1 Intermediate People’s Court, according to the National Enterprise Bankruptcy Information Disclosure Platform under the Supreme People’s Court. Set up in 2018 with registered capital of 400 million yuan (US$59.3 million), the company built EVs for Didi’s ride-hailing service.

Nasdaq-listed e-commerce luxury goods retailer Secoo has reportedly filed for bankruptcy with the First Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing Municipality – seven months after its last filing, according to Tianyancha, Inside Retail reported. According to LegalDaily, earlier this year Secoo filed for bankruptcy on the grounds it was unable to pay off its debts. The petition was subsequently withdrawn.

China’s low interest rates are failing to spur lending in the economy, creating a challenge for policy makers as they try to bolster the nation’s fragile recovery, Bloomberg News reported. Central bank data on Friday showed a sharp slowdown in aggregate financing, a broad measure of credit, in July, as new loans and corporate bond issuance weakened. At the same time, growth of M2, the broadest measure of money supply, accelerated more than expected to 12% in July.

Huobi Group founder Leon Li is engaged in talks with a group of investors as the Chinese entrepreneur is looking to sell his majority stake in the crypto exchange at a valuation between $2 billion to $3 billion, according to a Bloomberg report, Decrypt reported. People close to the matter said that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Tron founder Justin Sun are among the investors who have held preliminary talks with the Huobi boss. Li is reportedly seeking to sell about 60% of the firm.

China's real estate crisis is casting a darkening cloud over governance and financial prospects of once highly valued property management companies, triggering a rout in their shares and making investors cautious, Reuters reported. Already battered share prices have fallen a further 7% this month as investors have reacted to the latest instances of such companies lending support to cash-strapped developer parents.

China's top auditor is conducting a review of the U.S. $3 trillion trust industry, paving the way for a potential overhaul of a key shadow banking sector where losses on property loans are mounting, Bloomberg News reported. In an unscheduled move, the National Audit Office - which previously led an examination of bank exposures to Mr. Jack Ma's Ant Group - has for the past month been inspecting the books of at least 20 trust firms, including the top five, to gauge the risks they pose to financial stability.

A top arranger for Chinese junk dollar bonds says that a type of filing under the US bankruptcy code will play an important role for China’s distressed developers to restructure debt, buying them time to pay back creditors until markets recover, Bloomberg news reported. About 10 Chinese real estate companies could use so-called schemes of arrangement to restructure debt in a holistic fashion this year, Chen Yi, head of global capital markets at Haitong International Securities Group Ltd., said in an interview.

China’s surprisingly strong export growth in July lifted its trade surplus to another record and provided some much-needed economic support, but the country will still have to find ways to keep its fragile recovery on track as the global economy slows this year, Bloomberg News reported. The nation’s trade balance climbed to about $101 billion last month, while exports in dollar terms grew 18% from a year earlier -- far higher than economists’ estimates of a 14.1% gain.

The final whistle has sounded for China Evergrande Group’s global soccer ambitions. The embattled Chinese property giant is canceling a contract to build what was slated to be the world’s largest soccer stadium, and is returning land-use rights for the site to the government of Guangzhou in its home province, the Wall Street Journal reported. Evergrande said that it would receive a refund equivalent to about $818 million, and intends to use the money to help repay a mountain of debt. The property conglomerate, which has around $300 billion in liabilities, defaulted on its U.S.

China invited Zambia's private creditors to discuss the nation's debt later this month after official creditors agreed to a restructuring of its debt, Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Du Xiaohui said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Zambia's creditors have pledged to negotiate a restructuring of the country's debts in a move welcomed by International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva as "clearing the way" for a $1.4 billion fund programme.