China on Monday courted home buyers with a bigger tax break as it cut down-payment requirements for the second time in six months, stepping up a fight against sliding house prices that is imperiling the Chinese economy, the International New York Times reported. The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, said on its website that commercial banks could now lower their minimum down-payment requirement for buyers of second homes, and with outstanding mortgages, to 40 percent from 60 percent.

Zhou Xiaochuan, China’s central bank governor, warned on Sunday that the country needed to be vigilant about signs of deflation and said policy makers were closely watching the slowing of global economic growth and declines in commodity prices, the International New York Times reported. Mr. Zhou’s comments are likely to add to concerns that China is in danger of slipping into deflation and to underline increasing nervousness among policy makers as the economy continues to lose momentum despite a series of stimulus measures. “Inflation in China is also declining.

China’s central bank said on Wednesday that banks should step up financing support for farms in the latest bid to bolster that vulnerable sector and the overall economy, the International New York Times reported. The banking industry should “enhance the availability of financing for the agricultural sector at an affordable cost,” the central bank said in a news release. Policy makers face challenges in channeling bank loans into the cash-starved farming sector.

Sunac China Holdings Ltd. Chairman Sun Hongbin defended Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd.’s debt-restructuring proposal, saying it’s “reasonable” and that his company may seek other opportunities if its planned acquisition fails. Sunac won’t let the purchase of the troubled Shenzhen-based developer affect its own operations, Sun said at a briefing in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Kaisa’s situation is worse than expected and the company “definitely” won’t be able to make coupon payments next month, Sun said.

Bonds of 11 Chinese companies now yield more than 15 percent as investors brace for the nation’s second onshore default amid record maturities in the coming quarter, Bloomberg News reported. Companies in Asia’s largest economy need to repay 1.5 trillion yuan ($242 billion) of local-currency notes in the period to June 30, the most for a quarter in Bloomberg data going back to 1998.

The U.S. and Europe are to blame for China’s formation of its own development bank after the Asian power was neglected in the structures of existing international banks, a top European Union official said Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported. “China is aggressively stepping into an area where if we paid more attention, we would have had more normal relationships,” Kristalina Georgieva, vice president of the European Commission, said at the Brussels Forum, a foreign-policy conference.

Chinese banks have extended $16 billion in credit lines to shore up one of the country’s largest and most heavily indebted home builders, as pressure mounts on developers short of cash in a slumping property market, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The move by a group of mainly state-run banks to bolster the builder, Evergrande Real Estate Group, which is controlled by the colorful billionaire Hui Ka Yan, is the latest sign of tumult in China’s sprawling housing sector.

China is signaling more measures are in the works to regain economic momentum and overcome weak demand from businesses and consumers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Policies unveiled at the annual session of China’s legislature this month called for maintaining a moderately high rate of growth—7%—and outlined further deficit spending to support the goal.

Ever since China’s gargantuan stimulus of 2009, which was unleashed to repel the global financial crisis, people have worried about how the debts incurred would be repaid. This week the finance ministry provided a partial answer, in the form of a scheme to restructure the liabilities of local governments, the most indebted of China’s public institutions, The Economist reported. Local governments will be allowed to swap 1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) of their existing high-interest debts for lower-cost bonds.

In a world convulsed by the rising US dollar, the renminbi looks like a port in the storm, the Financial Times reported. The Chinese currency has slipped just under 1 per cent against the dollar this year, a mere rounding error compared with the Brazilian real’s 14 per cent tumble and the euro’s 12 per cent slide. But for a currency long seen as lacking a reverse gear, the recent drop to a 28-month low is nonetheless gaining attention, with some predicting far more severe problems down the road.