A delegation from a leading Chinese shipbuilding company has arrived in Croatia for talks about a possible investment in the country’s largest shipbuilder Uljanik, which is struggling to avoid bankruptcy, Reuters reported. Officials from the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) met Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and his economic team on Monday and will visit Uljanik’s docks in the northern Adriatic later this week. “After the visit to the docks we will give full and serious consideration to this matter,” CSIC’s Chief Executive Hu Wenming told reporters.

China likes to tout the virtues of its private sector, whose firms are the source of most new jobs and most economic growth in the country, a Bloomberg View reported. Not all private companies are created equal, however. Those perceived to have the state’s backing can grow disturbingly fast and crash to earth just as quickly. Behemoth China Minsheng Investment Group Corp. is only the latest example. The company was founded in May 2014 to act as a private-sector version of a sovereign wealth fund, one that would supposedly be better at investing than its state-run counterparts.

China’s dollar bond market faces a fresh test after a landmark default by a private sector champion is set to trigger the first drawdown of a letter of credit for a public Asian bond, Bloomberg News reported. China Minsheng Investment Group Corp. said last week debt problems at its affiliate triggered cross-default clauses on its notes including a $300 million bond, which carries a standby letter of credit (SBLC) from China Construction Bank Corp. According to CMIG’s bond document, the SBLC may be drawn down under an event of default, which includes cross-default.

China’s bond market is hosting a battle of wills between the country’s leadership and lower-ranking officials and corporate bosses, The Wall Street Journal reported. They are fighting over perpetual bonds, debtlike securities that lack a maturity date and technically never need to be repaid. Issuance has surged since the start of 2018, partly because state-backed companies see them as a way to hit Beijing-mandated debt-reduction targets without going through a painful restructuring or diluting government control.

Embattled Chinese conglomerate HNA Group has denied accusations of embezzlement and financial irregularity made by a rival group of shareholders in Hong Kong Airlines (HKA) as the two sides fight for control of the struggling carrier, Reuters reported. The allegations were made by Zhong Guosong and Frontier Investment Partner who between them control 61 percent of HKA’s shares. On Tuesday, they declared they had taken control of the carrier and made Zhong, a former HKA director, chairman after an extraordinary shareholder meeting.

China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co said it would reduce its registered capital by nearly one-third, the latest government-directed step of a massive restructuring of the debt-laden conglomerate to curb financial risks, Reuters reported. A state takeover work group, which has seized control of Anbang since February last year, has decided to trim the company’s registered capital to 41.5 billion yuan ($6.21 billion) from 61.9 billion yuan, pending approval from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, Anbang said in a statement released on Tuesday.

The loan default in Hong Kong by HNA Group Co. unit CWT International Ltd. is causing tremors in Singapore, Bloomberg News reported. Listed real estate investment trusts in the city-state that count CWT as a tenant dropped on concerns there might also be missed rent payments. Shares of Cache Logistics Trust extended declines Wednesday to the lowest in more than a month. Mapletree Logistics Trust, meanwhile, is down 4.1 percent since Monday, on track for its biggest weekly decrease since February 2018. CWT’s Singapore business is among the top 10 tenants of both landlords.

China’s growth will likely slow to 6.2 percent this year and 6 percent in 2020, as more of the economy shifts toward consumption and services, according to a biennial report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Bloomberg News reported. OECD estimated 2019 expansion would be 6.3 percent in an outlook published last year. China faces risks "tilted to the downside," including large-scale corporate defaults, a collapse of housing prices and rising geopolitical tensions, the OECD wrote in its economic survey on China published Tuesday.

So, the Chinese economy does have a pulse after all. Credit extension by banks and bond issuance by local governments are supporting some kind of revival in infrastructure investment, and a 30 per cent rise in the Chinese equity market since the start of this year is helping to lift the intensely pessimistic mood that paralysed Chinese spending in the latter part of 2018, the Financial Times reported. The stimulus policies that China started to introduce last summer, and intensified more recently, now seem to be reviving the patient.

CWT International Ltd., controlled by HNA Group Co., failed to pay interest on a HK$1.4 billion ($179 million) facility, prompting lenders to demand immediate repayment of the loan, the company said Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported. The Hong Kong-listed company will have to make good on the payment by 9 a.m. April 17 to prevent lenders from taking action, it said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.