Zimbabwe’s prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, said Tuesday that an official he had appointed had secured lines of credit worth $950 million from China, President Robert Mugabe’s longtime ally, The New York Times reported. Mr. Mugabe’s party has mocked Mr. Tsvangirai for failing to bring home much aid from his three-week tour of the United States and Europe. Zimbabwe’s government — a virtually bankrupt contraption led by Mr. Mugabe and his rival, Mr. Tsvangirai — needs an estimated $8 billion to rebuild the country’s ruined economy.

General Motors Corp. and the Chinese firm that has agreed to acquire the bankrupt automaker's Hummer unit are both denying earlier news reports that China will move to block the deal over pollution concerns, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. Read more. (Subscription required.)

China's central bank renewed its call on Friday for the creation of a super-sovereign reserve currency to reduce the dollar's global domination, which it said had worsened the financial crisis, Reuters reported. In its annual financial stability report, the central bank did not mention the dollar by name but said it was a serious defect that one currency should tower over all others. "An international monetary system dominated by a single sovereign currency has intensified the concentration of risk and the spread of the crisis," the People's Bank of China said.

Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. held discussions this week with General Motors Corp. about the possibility of buying Adam Opel GmbH if an existing bid for the European unit of GM falls through, a person familiar with the situation said, The Wall Street Journal reported. GM executives in Europe met with representatives of Beijing Auto after the Chinese government-owned company expressed interest in Opel for a second time, the person said.

Western consumers are buying fewer luxury goods, and demand for cashmere has plunged, The New York Times reported. The painful effects of this are being felt all the way to these nearly empty plateaus of Inner Mongolia, by goatherds and factory workers and owners — showing how ripples from markets in the United States, Europe and Japan can reverberate to some of the most remote corners of the world. The problem is not just the collapse of the cashmere market, but also a government ban on Kashmir goats across much of Inner Mongolia for environmental reasons.

Beijing is diversifying its overseas investments and pressing U.S. officials for an "exit strategy" from the ultra-loose fiscal and monetary policies that China fears will eventually inflate away the value of its U.S. bond holdings and fell the dollar. But China's pragmatic policymakers also know there is no practical alternative to the dollar as the world's main reserve currency.

The head of the IMF questioned on Monday any debate about when to roll back stimulus spending, saying the world economy had yet to weather the worst of a recession that claimed a record number of European jobs. The 16-country euro zone lost a record 1.22 million jobs in the first quarter, official data showed. Employment during the first quarter fell 1.2 percent year-on-year, the deepest annual drop since measurements started in 1995. Even if some form of economic recovery is not far off, analysts say unemployment will climb for many months to come.

OZ Minerals Ltd. shareholders Thursday approved the sale of US$1.39 billion of assets to China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co. with the transaction now set to be completed within a week, The Wall Street Journal reported. Minmetals increased its offer to US$1.39 billion from US$1.2 billion late Wednesday, shortly after a rival 1.4 billion Australian dollar (US$1.13 billion) recapitalization proposal from Macquarie Group Ltd. was withdrawn.

Beijing Automotive Industry Holding has expressed interest in acquiring Volvo, becoming the second Chinese company to eye the Swedish unit of Ford Motor Co., according to three people familiar with the situation, The Wall Street Journal reported. A team of executives from Chinese government-owned Beijing Auto was expected to visit Volvo's Swedish headquarters as early as Thursday to meet with its executives and tour its research-and-development and manufacturing facilities, the knowledgeable people said.

Chinese state media have confirmed plans to merge China Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines, creating an aviation company with a dominant position in domestic hub Shanghai, Agence France-Presse reported. “Starting June 8, China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines officially began their restructuring procedures," said Liu Jiangbo, a China Eastern spokesman, according to Xinhua news agency late Monday. He declined to provide any further details, according to Xinhua.