As President Xi Jinping of China prepares to tackle what may be the biggest cases of official corruption in more than six decades of Communist Party rule, new evidence suggests that he has been pushing his own family to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in investments, reducing his own political vulnerability, the International New York Times reported. No investment stakes have been tied directly to Mr. Xi or his wife and daughter.

China’s home buyers are being offered no-money-down purchases in an echo of the subprime lending that triggered a U.S. economic meltdown and the global financial crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Deals skirting government requirements for minimum 30 percent down payments have emerged this year from Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the south to Beijing in the north as real-estate sales slump, according to state media and statements by government agencies and developers.

Large banks and trading firms are frantically trying to determine whether they have fallen victim to a suspected commodities fraud emanating from the giant Qingdao Port in northeast China, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Citigroup and several other large Western banks are concerned that their loans may lack the appropriate collateral, big stockpiles of copper and aluminum at the port. The banks have inspectors on the ground who are trying to assess whether enough of the metals are there.

A surge in business loans to the slowing mainland Chinese economy has prompted Hong Kong regulators to impose strict financial rules four years before they are required under new global standards, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The move is aimed at discouraging banks in Hong Kong from raising money by relying too heavily on short-term funds that can evaporate during periods of tumult. But big global banks have been resisting, over fears that the rules will cut into their profit by driving up loan costs.

China has taken a fresh step to boost flagging growth by cutting the amount of cash reserves some lenders must hold at the central bank in a bid to boost lending to small businesses and the rural economy, the Financial Times reported. The People’s Bank of China said it would reduce the “required reserve ratio” by 0.5 per cent for banks that mainly lend to small businesses and rural borrowers. In the first quarter of this year, China’s economy grew by an annual 7.4 per cent, down from 7.7 per cent expansion in the final three months of 2013.

China Vanke Co., the nation’s biggest developer, is focused on developing homes for owner occupiers rather than investors because the country’s property industry has passed its “golden era,” said President Yu Liang, Bloomberg News reported. “The period in which everybody makes money out of property is gone,” Yu told reporters May 26 in Dongguan, a southern city in Guangdong province.

STX Dalian Group is now formally under court receivership after China’s Dalian court accepted the company’s application, Seatrade reported. The financially-troubled group will now undergo a restructuring process, and the court and its creditors will proceed to discuss how to resolve the debts of the company. Since May 2013, the operations of STX Dalian have been virtually crippled and the yards are being emptied out due to massive cash flow problems.

LDK Solar Co., the Chinese solar manufacturer which defaulted on a bond that matured in February, said it received 2 billion yuan ($321 million) of loans from Chinese banks, Bloomberg News reported. China Development Bank Corp., the nation’s biggest policy lender, is leading the funding from 11 financial institutions, LDK spokesman Peng Shaomin said in a phone interview today. LDK will spend more than 400 million yuan on a polysilicon project and use the remainder to boost its cash reserves, Peng said.

China will allow local governments to sell bonds for the first time in two decades in a big step towards tackling a looming crisis in public finances and reining in the shadow banking sector that municipal authorities rely on for funding, the Financial Times reported. China’s finance ministry said 10 local governments in mostly wealthy and well-managed provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, would be included in a pilot scheme to sell bonds on their own.

China will increasingly manage its troubled property sector locally, as the nation seeks to avoid causing either an abrupt slowdown that undermines the economy or another surge in prices, according to government economists involved in policy discussions, the International New York Times reported. After increasing at double-digit rates through most of last year, home prices started easing in late 2013 as a sustained campaign to clamp down on speculative investment and easy credit gained traction.