When Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, announced this year’s annual growth target of 7.5 per cent in March, most analysts assumed he was being unduly modest and that the world’s second-largest economy would actually expand much faster, the Financial Times reported. The Chinese economy has consistently outperformed annual targets over the past decade, averaging close to 11 per cent growth over that time, despite the 2008-09 global financial crisis. But with activity cooling much more than expected in recent months the 7.5 per cent target is starting to look ambitious.

Shareholders of troubled timber firm Sino-Forest Corp. would receive nothing under a proposed restructuring plan that would transfer remaining assets to creditors, thestar.com reported. A once-mighty company with a market capitalization of $6 billion, Sino Forest is now in tatters as its former executives face fraud accusations that include overstating assets and sales in China. Sino-Forest says it is owed $887.4 million from authorized intermediaries, who operated on its behalf in China.

In 2009, a flood of loans saved the day for China's economy. Now, there is barely a trickle, The Wall Street Journal Heard on the Street blog reported. New loans in July slid 41% month on month to 540.1 billion yuan ($84.9 billion). One reason: a new dynamic in China's banking system from wealth-management products, which offer a higher return than bank deposits. Fitch Ratings estimates about 10.4 trillion yuan was in WMPs at the end of June, equal to 11.5% of bank-sector deposits.

Concerns about China's economy intensified Friday on signs that attempts to kick-start growth aren't working and new evidence of weakness in the export sector, putting pressure on Beijing to move more aggressively, The Wall Street Journal reported. New loans by China's banks fell to 540.1 billion yuan ($85.1 billion) in July, down from 919.8 billion yuan in June, and the lowest level since September 2011, despite efforts by the central bank to make it easier to lend. Export growth also disappointed. July exports were up just 1% from a year ago, slowing from June's 11.3% pace.

In 2009, a flood of loans saved the day for China's economy. Now, there is barely a trickle, The Wall Street Journal Heard on the Street blog reported. New loans in July slid 41% month on month to 540.1 billion yuan ($84.9 billion). One reason: a new dynamic in China's banking system from wealth-management products, which offer a higher return than bank deposits. Fitch Ratings estimates about 10.4 trillion yuan was in WMPs at the end of June, equal to 11.5% of bank-sector deposits.

Embattled timber company Sino-Forest Corp., which is in bankruptcy protection, says it is owed half a billion dollars from companies that have been deregistered in China, thestar.com reported. Sino-Forest, which filed for bankruptcy protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in March, said in a new release Tuesday that it intends “to take all steps necessary” to collect receivables owing to it. It added that it believes the deregistrations, which have the effect of terminating the existence of the entities, were improper under Chinese law.

Some of China’s struggling auto makers, burdened by debt, may be forced into involuntary bankruptcy, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said last week, Forbes reported. The Ministry said in a note published on Tuesday that it is considering the introduction of a withdrawal mechanism to force near-bankrupt automakers out of the bloated automotive industry. China has around 1,300 automobile makers, including 171 car, truck and bus makers and more than 900 specialty vehicle manufacturers, according to the government.

China's statisticians get a tough press. After all, it was Europe, not China, whose fudged public finance data helped usher in the latest round of global financial turmoil. The biggest corporate fraud in recent memory isn't China's Sino-Forest, but America's Enron, The Wall Street Journal Heard on the Street blog reported. But a secretive single-party state claiming rapid growth as the rest of the world hovers on the brink of recession naturally arouses suspicion. The official numbers show growth in China's gross domestic product at 7.6% year-on-year in the second quarter.

Two Chinese private equity funds are closing in on a deal to buy the asset management arm of Dexia, highlighting the interest of Asian buyers in European financial assets as banks look to restructure in the wake of the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. If the sale of the business for about €500m is completed, it would mark the last stage of a break-up of the twice-bailed-out Belgo-French bank, one of the biggest European victims of successive financial crises during the past four years.

Sino-Forest Corp said on Tuesday it terminated a proposed asset sale, in favor of a plan that will result in the company's creditors acquiring all of its forestry assets, Reuters reported. The Chinese forestry company's shares plummeted in June 2011 after a short-seller accused it of exaggerating the size of its forestry assets. The company's stock has since been de-listed by the Toronto Stock Exchange and one of Canada's main securities regulators - the Ontario Securities Commission, recently charged the company and some of its former executives with fraud.