Yuan forwards fell by the most in three weeks after President Hu Jintao said China would follow its own path in reforming the nation’s currency policy. China won’t yield to outside pressure on the exchange rate and any changes will be “based on its own economic and social- development needs,” Hu told Barack Obama yesterday during a visit to Washington, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Non-deliverable forwards rose on April 9 to an 11-week high on mounting bets for an imminent shift in yuan policy. Bonds rose after the central bank kept bill yields stable at an auction.

High profile dairy farmer Allan Crafar says he will stay on his family land at Reporoa, despite an offer from receivers that was due to expire at the end of today, The New Zealand Herald reported. It was not clear whether that meant the end of the business day, however it appeared that the property was still being used by the family at around 6pm this evening. A spokesman for receivers KordaMentha said they were following a process but would not provide any further details.

A senior Chinese central bank official criticized the handling of the Greek debt crisis, highlighting global concern about the situation in Europe, The Wall Street Journal reported. Speaking at a conference in Hong Kong, Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, also said China "should and could" import more goods to keep its trade surplus small. And he noted that the central bank's efforts to tighten monetary policy were having their intended effect, even without China having to raise interest rates.

A senior Chinese trade official warned that any further appreciation of the Chinese currency risked driving exporters out of business, underscoring the domestic political pressures on Beijing amid growing international calls for China to let the yuan rise, The Wall Street Journal reported. Vice Commerce Minister Zhong Shan, in an exclusive interview Thursday ahead of a visit to the U.S., said that the profit margin on many Chinese export goods was less than 2%.

A string of villages on the outskirts of Beijing has become the unlikely focus of a national discussion about China's stubbornly tough job market for young people, as officials meet in the capital for the annual session of China's legislature, The Wall Street Journal reported. Government statistics show 87% of college graduates found work last year. But many graduates doubt those figures, and they say that jobs that are available often pay a barely livable wage.

Chinese real estate prices accelerated last month, rising by their fastest pace in two years despite government efforts to cool the market amid fears of a looming property bubble, the Financial Times reported. Prices of commercial and residential property in China’s 70 largest cities rose by 10.7 per cent in February from the same period a year earlier, a marked increase from the 9.5 per cent year-on-year gain in January, according to China’s statistics bureau.

Signs mounted Monday of Chinese authorities' concern about the risk from debt incurred by local governments in projects to help China's economy recover—an issue that is a hot topic at the National People's Congress, now meeting in Beijing, The Wall Street Journal reported. China's leaders have increased scrutiny of this debt over the past months, fearing that local governments won't be able to pay back all their loans. The issue was also highlighted in the Ministry of Finance's budget report released at the start of the annual legislative session on Friday.

Everyone agrees China is in the middle of a spectacular real estate boom. The question is whether it is in the middle of a rapidly growing real estate bubble, The New York Times reported. When other recent booms collapsed — in the United States, for instance — they depressed entire economies. In China’s case, a bursting bubble could affect much of the world. China is the fastest-growing large economy and, so far, a main engine pulling the world out of recession. Beijing is clearly concerned.

China's central bank favors legalizing some gray-area private lenders and removing ceilings on interest rates, an official said Thursday, changes that would make it easier for the nation's small and private businesses to get loans, The Wall Street Journal reported. The People's Bank of China plans to submit proposals for the regulatory changes to the State Council, or cabinet, as soon as possible, said Zhou Xuedong, director general of the central bank's law and regulation department.

The European Union is in need of a new economic strategy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The veracity of that statement might seem indisputable, as various EU countries, led by Greece, struggle to avoid being crushed by their accumulated debts. But in the surreal bureaucratic thinking of the EU, the reason it needs a new economic strategy has as much to do with the fact that its previous one is nearing its expiry date as any desperate need to deal with the current crisis. In March 2000, the EU set out its strategy for the next decade. It wasn't unambitious.