A wave of local-currency debt coming due next year alongside new stricter lending rules are bearing down on China’s developers and posing a risk to the country’s economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The twin threats combined with a widely expected property market slowdown portend a shift in fortunes for many home developers after they rode a housing boom and strong profits in this year’s first half.

S&P Global Ratings cut China’s sovereign credit rating for the first time since 1999, citing the risks from soaring debt, and revised its outlook to stable from negative, Bloomberg News reported. The sovereign rating was cut by one step, to A+ from AA-, the company said in a statement late Thursday. The analysts also lowered their rating on three foreign banks that primarily operate in China, saying HSBC China, Hang Seng China and DBS Bank China Ltd. would be unlikely to avoid default should the nation default on its sovereign debt.

Deng Xiaoping, the former Communist leader credited with opening China’s economy to the world, described his approach to reforms as “crossing the river by feeling the stones.” That philosophy continues to influence policy makers in Beijing as they gradually open the nation’s bond market to foreign investors, Bloomberg News reported. The liberalization has potential to be the biggest of its kind and significantly impact the flow of international capital.

Volkswagen will recall 4.86m vehicles sold in China over airbag problems, marking the latest blow for the German carmaker that has suffered numerous quality and distribution issues in the Asian country this year. VW will recall vehicles equipped with airbags manufactured by the now-bankrupt Japanese automotive parts maker Takata, according to a notice posted by China’s consumer inspection bureau, the Financial Times reported. The recall will apply to both imported and Chinese-made vehicles sold as early as 2005 and take effect in March 2018.

Insolvent German airline Air Berlin has attracted buyer interest from China’s LinkGlobal Logistics, which is likely to join a growing list of suitors, German newspaper Bild said on Wednesday. The paper said LinkGlobal, which operates German regional airport Parchim, expressed its intention of making a bid to the airline’s administrator in a letter dated Aug. 31 from LinkGlobal’s managing director Jonathan Pang, Reuters reported. LinkGlobal pledged to hand in a bid by the Sept. 15 deadline, according to the letter, a copy of which Bild said it had obtained.

The highest concentration of shadow loans in China is to be found in its slowest-growing province, a study by UBS Group AG shows. The value of shadow loans extended by regional banks in Liaoning, in the northeastern rust-belt region, amounted to 95 percent of their total lending in 2016, according to estimates provided to Bloomberg by UBS analyst Jason Bedford. Lenders in Liaoning have turned to informal banking arrangements to help them get around rules that restrict them from making traditional loans outside their home province, Bloomberg News reported.

China’s cities, towns and counties are facing surging borrowing costs as investors anticipate landmark defaults, Bloomberg News reported. A local government financing vehicle in the country’s east was recently forced to pay a coupon on a bond that matched a record. Average financing costs in credit markets for the units that finance roads, bridges and sewers have jumped, with yields for some borrowers surging the most in six years.

Greenland Holdings Corp., China’s fourth-biggest developer by property sales, said it had overdue loans of 457.5 million yuan ($69.2 million) in some units in the northeast province of Liaoning at the end of June, underscoring concerns about the company’s debt problems, Bloomberg News reported. Companies under Greenland’s unit in Liaoning had overdue short-term debt of 247.5 million yuan, as well as 210 million yuan in long-term obligations, according to Greenland’s interim report dated Aug. 25.

Venezuela's close ally China said on Monday that history shows external interference and unilateral sanctions only make things more complex and will not help resolve problems, after the United States imposed new sanctions on Venezuela, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company on Friday in an effort to halt financing that the White House said fuels President Nicolas Maduro's "dictatorship".

Rising corporate profits are providing Chinese policymakers with room to do more to tackle the country’s growing debt problems without inflicting major damage on the economy, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Profits are increasing even though financial conditions are tightening in some significant areas of the economy; lending rates have inched higher, regulators have clamped down against risky lending and have moved to take the heat out of the property sector.