For years, no matter what was happening elsewhere, global companies bet billions upon billions of dollars that China’s consumers would keep spending money. Now, just when the world economy could use their financial firepower, they are holding back, worried about the country’s slowing growth, a trade war with the United States and rising amounts of personal debt, the International New York Times reported. Zhao Zheng, 26, is among the cost-conscious consumers. On Thursday, Mr.

Another Chinese peer-to-peer lender told investors on Wednesday it wouldn’t be able to pay them back, highlighting risks to the nation’s broader financial system as rising defaults and tougher regulations hit the $176 billion industry, Bloomberg News reported. Hangzhou-based Xinhehui told investors at a meeting that it won’t be able to make repayments on a total of 2.26 billion yuan ($330 million) of products issued to them, according to attendees and videos seen by Bloomberg News. More than 17,000 individual investors are affected.

China will cut the reserve requirement ratio and improve funding conditions this month, as liquidity tightens toward the Spring Festival holidays, the country’s largest securities firm says, Bloomberg News reported. Fresh demand for funds will amount to nearly 4.3 trillion yuan ($625 billion) in January, according to Citic Securities Co. and Bloomberg calculations. Mainland residents will withdraw 1 trillion yuan of cash in preparation for the holiday, when money is gifted in red envelopes.

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. faces losing its entire investment of almost $150 million in a key urban redevelopment project, underscoring the vagaries in China’s property market, Bloomberg News reported. The Shenzhen-based home builder, which gained notoriety in 2015 when it became the first developer from the nation to default on U.S. dollar debt, has invested more than 1 billion yuan ($146 million) in a project in Xi’an to transform a shanty town into residential dwellings.

Chinese electric vehicle developer Faraday Future said on Monday it signed a new restructuring agreement with a unit of its main investor, Evergrande Health Industry Group Ltd, ending a bitter legal fight and clearing the path for raising funds, Reuters reported. Season Smart, which agreed to be bought by China’s Evergrande Health, will now own 32 percent preference shares, down from a previous 45 percent, according to filings.

All politics is local, runs the old saw. In China, local governments lie at the root of the country’s debt problem—a problem likely only to grow in 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported. Most analysts see the Chinese government’s relatively low debt—equivalent to around 16% of GDP at the end of 2017, according to Moody’s—as a strength. But add in both official local government debt, and debt issued by off-balance sheet financing vehicles backed by local governments—known as LGFVs—and that ratio climbs to 60% of GDP.

E-commerce giant JD.com Inc. is revamping operations in what analysts said is a bid to calm investors about the company’s plunging stock price and heavy reliance on its founder, the Wall Street Journal reported. JD Mall, the company’s main revenue-generating unit, will be restructured into three business departments, according to an internal document seen by the Journal. Responsibilities will be divided into platforms directly serving customers, business support services and infrastructure control and risk management, the document said.

On the sidewalks of Shanghai and Beijing, once bright-yellow Ofo bicycles lie in varying states of disrepair - chains unhooked, wheels buckled and paint starting to fade - reflecting the quick rise and sharp fall of the Chinese bike-sharing startup, Reuters reported. Millions of Ofo users are clamoring for their deposits to be returned and the firm’s founder has admitted considering bankruptcy. Ofo’s plight is a warning for China’s tech investors, who have plowed tens of billions of dollars into loss-making businesses such as bike sharing, ride hailing and food delivery.