China

Multinational companies are hiring less or cutting existing staff in China as they struggle through the global economic crisis, according to state media, Agence France-Presse reported. Nearly 70 percent of firms polled in a survey by FESCO, a Beijing-based, state-run recruitment agency targeting foreign companies, said they were scaling back their recruitment plans this year, the China Daily reported. In addition, 27 percent said they had already started laying off employees, the survey found after polling 356 of its clients in different industries across China, the newspaper said.

Russia has won $25 billion in loans from China in return for agreeing to supply oil from new fields in eastern Siberia for the next 20 years as Moscow seeks funds to see its oil industry through the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. Transneft, Russia’s oil pipeline monopoly, said on Tuesday China had agreed to lend it $10 billion (€8 billion, £7 billion) and Rosneft, Russia’s state-controlled oil giant, $15 billion in return for 20 years’ worth of oil supplies.

Sanlu Group, the dairy firm at the heart of China's huge contaminated milk scandal, has been formally declared bankrupt, state media reported Thursday, citing a local court. Xinhua news agency said a court in the northern city of Shijiazhuang, where Sanlu is based, had accepted the company's bankruptcy filing as it faced 1.1 billion yuan (161 million dollars) of debt, Agence France-Presse reported. "The Shijiazhuang city intermediate court has formally declared Sanlu Group bankrupt," Xinhua said.

Australia’s A$42 billion ($28 billion) stimulus package may keep the nation from sliding into its first recession since 1991 by stoking consumer spending and building schools, roads and hospitals, Bloomberg reported. The Treasury department forecasts Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s stimulus plan will help Australia defy a global recession by creating 90,000 jobs and boosting consumer spending. Almost one third of the package includes cash handouts of as much as A$900 to low and middle-income earners.

Lawyers saw a significant jump in insolvency, litigation and debt and corporate restructuring activities during the fourth quarter of last year--but they feel this may be just the tip of the iceberg, The Straits Times reported. With the worsening economic climate, recent months have seen law firms busy with the financing woes at listed companies, such as Chinese steel coil-maker FerroChina, China Printing & Dyeing, Jurong Technologies and electronics retailer TT International.

China has pledged to take all necessary measures to stimulate its economy and fuel consumer spending, but has rejected as “ridiculous” suggestions that its huge pool of domestic savings has been partly to blame for the global financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. In a rare interview, Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, said in London on Sunday that Beijing was considering fresh measures to boost its economy beyond its Rmb4,000 billion ($585 billion, €458 billion, £404 billion) fiscal package launched late last year.

As Timothy F. Geithner moved closer yesterday to confirmation as U.S. Treasury secretary, he signaled a more confrontational approach toward China, bluntly stating that the new administration thinks Beijing is "manipulating" its currency and it will act "aggressively" using "all the diplomatic avenues" to change China's currency practices, The Washington Post reported.

China sentenced two men to death and imposed life in prison on Sanlu Group Co.’s former head for their involvement in the tainted-milk scandal that claimed the lives of at least six babies, Xinhua news agency said. Sanlu’s former chairwoman Tian Wenhua was sentenced to life in prison by the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People’s Court today, the news agency said. Zhang Yujun, who made and sold melamine- laced protein powder, and Geng Jinping, who produced and marketed toxic food, were sentenced to death, Xinhua said.

Car sales growth in China, the world's second-largest auto market, slowed to a single-digit rate last year for the first time in at least 10 years as consumer confidence waned with a slowing economy, spurring government steps to bolster demand, The Korea Herald reported. Analysts said the outlook for this year remained bleak, although tax incentives and other measures may help to keep the market from shrinking, while some automakers such as the Japanese have been able to cushion the blow by introducing new models.

China has bought more than $1 trillion in American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a shift that could pose some challenges to the U.S. government in the near future but eventually may even produce salutary effects on the world economy, the International Herald Tribune reported. The declining Chinese appetite for U.S. debt, apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the past two weeks, comes at an inopportune time.