China’s central bank has pumped enough cash into the banking system to convince government bond investors that the worst is finally over, Bloomberg News reported. Over the past month, the People’s Bank of China has had to work especially hard to rein in borrowing costs after a surge in credit defaults damped commercial lenders’ enthusiasm to make loans. The central bank injected a net $84 billion in one-year funding and $20 billion of short-term cash into the financial system in the final five weeks of 2020 alone.
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China has fined operators of three major e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and JD.com Inc., $76,600 each for mispricing products, the latest in the barrage of regulatory actions targeting the increasingly influential internet sector, the Wall Street Journal reported. China’s top market regulator, the State Administration for Market Regulation, said yesterday that it investigated the three platforms—Alibaba’s Tmall Supermarket, JD.com and Vipshop Holdings Ltd. —after receiving complaints from consumers.
China has turned around more than 2,000 loss-making “zombie” and heavily indebted companies in its campaign against poorly performing enterprises, the deputy head of the country’s state assets regulator said yesterday. China in 2016 set a goal of eliminating thousands of unprofitable zombie firms - those that have survived on bank loans and local government backing - by 2020.
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China’s top credit-rating firm was banned from rating new bonds for three months, after an investigation found it ignored red flags at a state-owned coal miner whose default last month rattled the country’s bond market, the Wall Street Journal reported. China Chengxin International Credit Rating Co. had an AAA rating on the miner when it failed to repay the equivalent of $153 million in short-term debt on Nov. 10. The default occurred just weeks after the company, Yongcheng Coal & Electricity Holding Group Co., raised the same amount from a sale of three-year-debt.
Countries that once avoided upsetting Beijing are moving closer to the U.S.’s harder and largely bipartisan stance—to curb Chinese access to customers, technology and sensitive infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported. Australia, economically dependent on China, became one of the first countries to block Huawei Technology Co. on its soil, and led global calls for an investigation into China’s initial handling of the coronavirus. India, once a pillar of the world’s nonaligned movement, is expanding military cooperation with the U.S.
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Chinese banks are expected to face headwinds raising funds next year as profit-conscious investors cling to the sidelines, expecting a wave of bad loans to hammer the sector and erode already slimming margins, Reuters reported. The sector is ending its worst annual performance in years after putting aside record provisions due to COVID-19 while Beijing urged banks to sacrifice profits to help the economy.
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Chinese financial regulators moved to rein in Ant Group Co., the financial-technology giant controlled by billionaire Jack Ma, telling it to switch its focus back to its mainstay payments business and rectify problems in faster-growing areas such as personal lending, insurance and wealth management, the Wall Street Journal reported. China’s central bank on Sunday criticized Ant for its behavior toward competitors and consumers, and what regulators said was problematic corporate governance.
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China’s central bank will scale back support for the economy in 2021 and cool credit growth, but fears of derailing a recovery from a pandemic-induced slump and debt defaults are likely to prevent it from tightening any time soon, policy sources said, Reuters reported. This expands on a theme recently outlined at China’s annual Central Economic Work Conference to plan for 2021, where leaders said the country would keep its proactive fiscal policy and make monetary policy flexible and targeted.
China’s banking and insurance regulator said on Thursday it has approved the opening of China Galaxy Asset Management Co., Ltd, the fifth asset management company in the country that will mainly deal with bad loans and toxic assets nationwide, Reuters reported. Chinese banks are braced for rising bad debt in the coming months as policies designed to give borrowers breathing space on loans during the coronavirus crisis expire.
China’s central bank is striking out on its own with signals of tighter monetary policy, widening a divergence with other large economies that will shape global capital and trade flows next year, Bloomberg News reported. With most of the world’s major nations still battling the pandemic and struggling to recover from deep recessions, China’s economy is on track to grow by about 2% this year and more than 8% in 2021.