Country Garden Holdings Co.’s sales slump continued in February, as new home transactions saw only a tepid recovery across China and homebuyers shifted to state builders, Bloomberg News reported. Contracted sales dropped 38% from a year earlier to 2.3 billion yuan ($317 million), following a 59% year-on-year drop in January, Bloomberg calculations based on corporate filings show. Sales were little changed from the previous month. China is trying to put a floor under the real estate meltdown amid weak domestic demand and a worsening job situation.

U.S. President Donald Trump's new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada took effect on Tuesday, along with a doubling of duties on Chinese goods to 20%, sparking trade wars that could slam economic growth and lift prices for Americans still smarting from years of high inflation, Reuters reported. The tariff actions, which look set to upend nearly $2.2 trillion in annual U.S. trade with its top three trading partners, went live at 12:01 a.m. (0501 GMT).

Country Garden has again engaged Houlihan Lokey and China International Capital Corporation as financial advisers on its offshore debt restructuring, Bloomberg News reported. The defaulted property giant had previously hired Houlihan and CICC in 2023, but later parted ways. The advisory relationship with Houlihan was discontinued partly due to costs. Country Garden then appointed KPMG Advisory to the role in January 2024. Country Garden, which defaulted on dollar debt in 2023, has struggled to secure broad support for its restructuring.

Company executives and foreign officials are scrambling to avert the consequences of another tight deadline from President Trump, who has threatened to put stiff tariffs on goods coming in from China, Canada and Mexico starting just after midnight Tuesday. The president describes this as an effort to pressure those countries to stop the flow of deadly drugs and migrants to the United States. But Mr.

A private gauge showed China’s manufacturing activity expanding at the fastest pace in three months, signaling a trend of improvement consistent with the official index, the Wall Street Journal reported. The China Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 50.8 in February from 50.1 in January, according to data released Monday by Caixin Media Co. and S&P Global. It was the fifth consecutive month that the index stayed above 50, the threshold separating expansion from contraction.

China's factory activity likely contracted for a second month in February, keeping alive calls for even more stimulus to prop up depressed domestic demand in the world's second-largest economy as manufacturers brace for fresh U.S. tariffs, Reuters reported. A Reuters poll of 21 economists forecast the official purchasing managers' index (PMI) will come in at 49.9, up from January's 49.1 but still below the 50-point threshold that separates growth from contraction in activity.

China's banks are cutting the interest rates offered on U.S. dollar deposits after being asked to do so by the central bank, possibly to curtail dollar hoarding and also prop up a weakening yuan, Reuters reported. Mainland retail investors and exporters have built up nearly a trillion dollars worth of deposits because of higher U.S. yields and the yuan's slide. Two banking sources with direct knowledge of the matter said that banks across China, big and small, have over the past few weeks been told by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) they have to cut dollar deposit rates.

Distressed Chinese developer Yuzhou Group (1628) needs financing to press ahead with an offshore restructuring plan that received court approval last year, Bloomberg News reported. The builder will use the next six months to “shore up its liquidity in advance of making the payments due on the restructuring effective date,” Christopher Hunker, a counsel at Linklaters on behalf of Yuzhou, said during a Tuesday bankruptcy court hearing in New York. Financing difficulties have led to delays implementing the plan, the company said earlier this month in an exchange filing.