Saab's new partner Hawtai defended itself against claims reportedly made by a top Swedish diplomat that raised doubts about the Chinese automaker's ability to salvage the Swedish car brand, Agence France-Presse reported. In a deal unveiled on Tuesday, Hawtai is set to inject 150 million euros ($223 million) into cash-strapped Saab through a partnership including joint ventures in manufacturing, technology and distribution.

Spyker Cars NV, which owns the troubled Swedish car maker Saab Automobile, is in talks with three Chinese companies about possible investments, according to two people familiar with the situation, as the Dutch car maker Friday cut its 2011 sales outlook and reported an operating loss for the first quarter. The Chinese companies are Great Wall Motor Co., China Youngman Automobile Group Co. and Jiangsu Yueda Group Co., two people familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Newswires.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (1398) Ltd. led the nation’s biggest banks in curbing defaults in the first quarter, helping alleviate concern that their asset quality may deteriorate following a two-year credit boom, Bloomberg reported. Bad loans at Beijing-based ICBC, the world’s most profitable bank, dropped almost 4 percent from the end of 2010 as earnings for the three-month period climbed 29 percent from a year earlier, according to an exchange filing yesterday.

The first yuan-denominated share to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange is laying the groundwork for a "seismic change" when China allows its citizens to invest abroad more freely, the exchange's head said. In an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal, Charles Li, chief executive of Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd., said exchange officials are preparing for much greater outbound investment from China that would drive demand for yuan-linked products in Hong Kong.

As protests by truckers flared into a third day in China's biggest port city and shippers offered the first indications that trade is being slowed, idled trucks illustrated how inflation worries could gum up the world's No. 2 economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The truckers' demonstrations and work stoppages, which began Wednesday, are perhaps the starkest sign yet of the widespread public frustration over inflation in China that has persisted despite six months of tightening moves by the government.

China could continue to invest some of its enormous reserves in European government debt, its ambassador to the European Union said Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported. China has recently bought chunks of Spanish and Greek debt, and its companies are investing across broad sectors of the European economy, including in ports, chemical firms and car makers. Two weeks ago, when Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero traveled to China, Premier Wen Jiabao pledged his support for Spanish public finances and its banking sector.

China is accelerating efforts to push its currency deeper into world markets, racing ahead with a series of moves toward a new financial ecosystem with the yuan at its center. A senior Hong Kong monetary official told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that China's central bank is "actively considering" new rules that would make it easier to bring yuan funds raised offshore back onto the Chinese mainland.

As the United States and Europe struggle to get their economies rolling again, China is having the opposite problem: figuring out how to keep its revved-up growth engine from generating runaway inflation, the International Herald Tribune reported. The latest sign that things were moving too fast came on Sunday, when China’s central bank ordered the biggest banks to set aside more cash reserves. The move essentially reduces the amount of money available for loans, and is an attempt to cool down the economy.

Madrid has been forced to make an embarrassing clarification after claims that Spain had secured from China up to €9bn in investment in its troubled savings banks were denied by Beijing, the Financial Times reported. Spanish officials said an “error of communication” had led to reports that China Investment Corporation – one of the country’s sovereign wealth funds – was considering a €9bn investment after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, met Chinese leaders this week. A CIC official told Reuters that reports in the Spanish media of the investment were false.

Chinese banks may have to raise about 860 billion yuan ($131 billion) of stock over six years to meet stricter capital rules, according to estimates from the industry regulator, a person with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg reported. Lenders are likely to need an additional 1.26 trillion yuan in supplementary capital by the end of 2016, the person said, declining to be named because the calculations aren’t public. The estimates, compiled in January, assume economic growth of 8 percent a year and 15 percent credit expansion, the person said.