China’s central bank has started actively encouraging banks to extend more credit by taking a softer stance on loan quotas, people familiar with the matter said, as authorities ratchet up efforts to bolster a cooling economy, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China has delivered the message via so-called window guidance, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private information. The central bank hasn’t provided specific targets, but it indicated a willingness to be more flexible on banks’ government-imposed lending caps, the people said.

Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former cricket captain and newly elected prime minister, is on a sticky wicket. His victory in last week’s polls was secured in part on a pledge to ramp up spending on public services. Yet the coffers are empty and a balance of payments crisis looms, the Financial Times reported. Instead of the “Islamic welfare state” he hoped to create, his aides are forced to ponder the prospect of an IMF deal. Even that safety net may not be at hand.

A slowing economy and a rumbling trade war are giving officials trying to tame China’s debt reason to be more selective about their targets, not to give up completely, Bloomberg News reported. Less than two years into the broad-based drive to contain credit growth, policy makers are now placing more emphasis on curbing debt at state firms and in parts of the property market. Meanwhile, the vise-grip that’s been causing contraction in the shadow banking sector and at local governments is being eased in the hope of preventing a sudden stop in the economy.

Recent optimism in China’s debt market will soon be put to the test, with investors able to demand early repayment for as much as 544.7 billion yuan ($80 billion) of debt by year-end, Bloomberg News reported. The amount of local bonds with put options that hit trigger points in the coming five months comes to almost 1.4 times the tally from January to July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

At dusk under a smoggy sky, in the heart of north-east China’s rust belt, workers in beige uniforms file out of Shenyang Machine Tool, a lossmaking state-owned enterprise that is a pillar of the regional economy, the Financial Times reported. It looks like the end of any day in the company’s 35-year history, but workers know the factory’s best days are behind it.

South Africa is getting down to the business of fixing its debt-ridden state power utility. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. had 399 billion rand ($30 billion) of debt at the end of March, according to Bloomberg data, and has been flagged by ratings companies as a key risk to South Africa’s economy, Bloomberg News reported. The utility has been mired in a series of scandals, struggled to raise funds and was forced to implement rolling blackouts last month after wage talks with unions broke down.

Chinese financial markets are rediscovering an appetite for risk not seen in months, taking cues from the government’s biggest push yet to invigorate this year’s slowing economy, Bloomberg News reported. The CSI 300 Index of mainland stocks climbed 1.6 percent Tuesday, capping its biggest three-day gain since mid-August 2016, when economic indicators vindicated China’s moves to stabilize a slowdown back then. While there’s no guarantee of success this time, with the X-factor of a trade dispute with the U.S. at play, traders are betting big.

Chinese independent refiner Shandong Haiyou Petrochemical Group and a chemical trader have filed for joint bankruptcy, according to a court filing, the latest sign of deepening pain for the sector amid high oil prices and greater regulatory scrutiny, Reuters reported.

China's biggest manager of bad debts is trying to exit early from at least three loans and investments as it wrestles with a liquidity crunch triggered by an anti-corruption probe into its chairman, people with knowledge of the matter said, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. China Huarong Asset Management, one of four state-backed so-called "bad banks" formed in 1999, has been trying to raise cash since Lai Xiaomin resigned as chairman in April amid a graft probe, the sources said.

Chinese domestic bonds may once have been the world’s biggest market that no one paid attention to. No longer. Mounting defaults and steepening yields have raised doubts about the $12 trillion market’s health, just as China’s economy shows signs of faltering, The Wall Street Journal reported. All the same, foreign investors have been piling in this year. Are they headed for a rude awakening? Stress is rising, for sure: Chinese companies have defaulted on $2.9 billion worth of bonds this year, almost as much as in all of 2017, according to Wind Info data.