Pakistan is getting a promising response from China over its request to lengthen maturities for Belt and Road Initiative loans, according to its finance minister, signaling potentially more breathing room for the nation that has been squeezed by costly borrowing in the past, Bloomberg News reported. The South Asian nation is looking to increase the maturities for debt taken to build power plants and “create enough space” to lower electricity prices, Muhammad Aurangzeb said in an interview in Washington.

China’s youth unemployment rate dropped in September after hitting a seasonal high during the summer but remained elevated, underscoring the strains in the country’s job market, the Wall Street Journal reported. The jobless rate among 16- to 24-year-olds, excluding students, stood at 17.6% last month, down from the peak of 18.8% in August, when millions of college graduates entered the labor market, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen rebuked China’s “opaque” lending practices and urged global financial institutions and other creditors to accelerate debt relief to low- and middle-income countries in an interview on Monday, the New York Times reported. Her comments came ahead of this week’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where global economic policymakers are gathering in Washington at a pivotal moment for the world economy. Inflation has eased, but war in the Middle East has threatened to jolt energy markets.

Chinese banks cut their benchmark lending rates after easing by the central bank at the end of September, part of a series of measures aimed at reviving economic growth and halting a housing market slump, Bloomberg News reported. The one-year loan prime rate was lowered to 3.10% from 3.35%, while the five-year LPR was reduced to 3.60% from 3.85%.

China’s economy slowed in the third quarter, a deceleration that highlights the urgency of Beijing’s recent pivot toward greater support for growth after months of hesitancy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Investors’ initial euphoria over Beijing’s weekslong barrage of stimulus measures and messages of reassurance has faded, however, as doubts have crept in over just how effective any planned stimulus will be at revving up the ailing economy and bringing a festering property crisis to a close.

The United States will use restrictive tools like tariffs to push back against China's practice of making far more goods than it needs in order to dominate global markets, White House official Daleep Singh said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, said the Asian giant has amassed growing market power that it uses for economic and geopolitical leverage, and Washington viewed the costs as unacceptable. "So that's the problem, and it's not abstract.

China’s policymakers rolled out fresh stimulus aimed at boosting the country’s sluggish property sector, though the measures fell short of hopes for more specific liquidity support, the Wall Street Journal reported. Authorities plan to fast-track credit for struggling property developers, and aim to renovate 1 million apartments in so-called urban shantytowns, a strategy used during the prior real-estate slump, the housing ministry and other policymakers said Thursday at a highly anticipated press conference.

With China’s economy sinking deeper into a funk last month, Xi Jinping finally decided something had to be done. After resisting calls to take forceful steps to prop up the economy for two years, Xi relented in late September and ordered a barrage of interest-rate cuts and other measures to put a floor under growth. But Xi didn’t give his economic mandarins a blank check.

The Chinese government’s flurry of stimulus measures has upended the country’s stock markets. It has also brought potential home buyers back into the marketplace, raising hopes that official attempts at boosting confidence can rekindle a sector critical to any lasting rebound, the Wall Street Journal reported. Home viewings and sales of new and previously owned homes jumped in China’s biggest cities during the recently concluded weeklong National Day holiday, state media reported, while rising more modestly in lower-income cities.

China’s exports slowed sharply in September as global demand weakened, adding to worries over how to recharge growth in the world’s second-largest economy, the Associated Press reported. Exports rose 2.4% in dollar terms from a year earlier last month, down from 8.7% year-on-year growth in August, the Chinese customs office reported Monday. Imports rose just 0.3% in September. China recorded a trade surplus of $81.7 billion in September, down from $91 billion in August. China’s leaders have been struggling to rev up the economy since the COVID-19 pandemic ended. The U.S.