The European Union’s top trade official said China will exploit Russia’s need to diversify where it sells its energy, with the bloc set to ban as much as 90% of Moscow’s crude oil imports by year’s end, Bloomberg News reported. “What we are seeing, especially in this situation of Russia´s weakness, is that China is going to take good advantage of it,” European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told Bloomberg on Wednesday. “It’s not going to be very advantageous for Russia.” Dombrovskis said that Russia is currently selling its oil to China at a 35% discount.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday the Biden administration is actively considering adding new Chinese companies to the government's economic blacklist as it investigates what it calls efforts by China to evade U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported. The Commerce Department's Entity List restricts access to U.S. exports. Raimondo told reporters the administration was working to "get information around bad actors in China and adding those companies to the Entity List ...

Economic activity in China declined for a third straight month in May, though at a slower pace than in April, according to surveys of businesses and factories, the Wall Street Journal reported. But while the surveys suggest the economy is beginning to climb out of a severe downturn as Covid-19 restrictions are eased, economists are skeptical about a big revival. Growth will remain subdued, they say, as long as the government employs a zero-tolerance approach to virus outbreaks that involves mass lockdowns and business closures.

China's lack of experience with tricky debt restructurings and slow coordination among its public lenders is holding up debt relief for Zambia, a test case for the top emerging market creditor, Reuters reported. Zambia became in 2020 the first country to default in the COVID-19 pandemic era, struggling under a debt burden worth 120% of GDP. Its external debt topped $17 billion at the end of 2021, of which a third was owed to China, according to Zambian government data.

China Evergrande Group is considering repaying offshore public bondholders owed around $19 billion with cash instalments and equity in two of its Hong Kong-listed units, two sources said, as the world's most indebted developer struggles to emerge from its financial crisis, Reuters reported. Evergrande's entire $22.7 billion worth of offshore debt including loans and private bonds is deemed to be in default after missing payment obligations late last year. It said in March that it will unveil a preliminary debt restructuring proposal by the end of July.

State-backed Chinese property developer Greenland Holdings said on Friday that it plans to extend the repayment of its $488 million offshore bond maturing in June by one year, according to a transcript seen by Reuters and confirmed by sources who attended an investor call. Shanghai-based Greenland is the first state-backed developer to extend a dollar bond payment since the country's property sector plunged into a debt crisis last year.

Shanghai took more gradual steps on Friday towards lifting its COVID-19 lockdown while Beijing was investigating cases where its strict curbs were affecting other medical treatments as China soldiered on with its uneven exit from restrictions, Reuters reported. The financial hub and the capital have been hot spots, with a harsh two-month lockdown to arrest a coronavirus spike in Shanghai and tight movement restrictions to stamp out a small but stubborn outbreak in Beijing.

China's property market, a key pillar of the world's second-largest economy, has weakened sharply in the past year as a result of a government clampdown on excessive borrowings by developers, and a COVID-19-induced economic slowdown, Reuters reported. So far this year, more than 100 cities have taken steps to boost home purchase demand via cuts in mortgage rates, smaller down-payments, and subsidies. However, the outlook remains bleak as the government enforces strict COVID curbs in dozens of cities, weighing on consumer confidence.

China and the United States are committed to reach an arrangement on the audit inspection issue that is in line with legal and regulatory requirements for both sides, China's securities regulator said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The statement from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) came in response to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official saying "significant issues remain" in reaching a deal over U.S.-listed Chinese company audits.

Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co. must pay its former business partner SL Green Realty Corp. about $185 million in a dispute over a bankrupt Manhattan skyscraper, an arbitrator said, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The arbitrator, former judge L. Priscilla Hall, found that real-estate investment trust SL Green was entitled to a $184.6 million payment over an investment that it made in HNA Group’s 245 Park Ave., according to documents made public in a New York state court on Friday. SL Green should also be reimbursed for $856,000 in fees, she said.