China

Chinese companies were among the main buyers at the bankruptcy auction for BelGaN's high-tech machinery, Belgium’s last industrial chip manufacturer. In total, it raised over €23 million on Friday, according to its creditors, the Brussels Times reported. The company, based in Oudenaarde, East Flanders, went out of business three months ago, leaving over 400 employees jobless. The company specialised in the production of innovative gallium nitride semiconductors. https://www.brusselstimes.com/1388179/china-buys-assets-of-belgiums-bankrupt-semiconductor-maker

A key bondholder group of Country Garden Holdings Co., one of China’s most closely watched developers ensnared in the broader property crisis, isn’t on board with restructuring terms unveiled on Thursday, Bloomberg News reported. The new proposals by Country Garden aren’t supported by the so-called ad hoc group, which holds more than 30% of the developer’s outstanding $10.4 billion of notes.

Chinese property developers are starting 2025 facing liquidation petitions and mountains of debt as the nation’s real estate crisis enters its fifth year with little sign of improvement, Bloomberg News reported. Just this week, defaulted Chinese builder Sunac China Holdings Ltd received another winding-up petition. While the company successfully restructured its offshore debt in 2023, concerns about its ability to meet payment obligations have pushed its stock and bond prices to the lowest level in months.

In a striking sign of the Chinese economy’s stagnation, the central bank said on Friday that it had temporarily stopped buying government bonds, the New York Times reported. The central bank’s unexpected action is aimed at braking a recent shift by investors toward purchasing bonds while shunning riskier assets like stocks and real estate. That shift has driven China’s long-term interest rates to a record low. The decision to stop buying government bonds is especially unusual because interest rates have been rising lately in most of the world, in response to inflation fears.

Country Garden has proposed a deal to its offshore creditors that will cut its debt by $11.6 billion, paving the way for the property developer to seek more time from the high court in Hong Kong to implement a restructuring plan, Reuters reported. The indebted developer has reached an understanding with a lender group made up of seven banks ahead of the company's liquidation hearing on Jan. 20 in Hong Kong, bringing it closer towards a restructuring of its offshore debt.

Country Garden Holdings Co.’s sales slump continued in December even as the Chinese property market showed signs of stabilization after the government’s stimulus packages, Bloomberg News reported. Contracted sales declined 51% from a year earlier to 3.42 billion yuan ($467 million), narrowing from a 52% year-on-year drop in November, Bloomberg calculations based on corporate filings show. The developer’s home sales have cratered from 22 billion yuan in December 2022. China’s residential property market has shown gradual signs of stabilization after a government stimulus blitz.

China reaffirmed its support for the yuan after allowing the currency to slip below a key support level in the last session, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China set its daily reference rate stronger than the closely watched line of 7.2 per dollar. That helped ease concern that Beijing will allow a sharper depreciation, after the onshore yuan slid past 7.3 per dollar due to mounting economic pressures and a widening yield gap with the U.S.

A private gauge of China’s service activity expanded at a faster clip at the end of 2024 as Beijing moved to boost domestic demand, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Caixin services purchasing managers index rose to 52.2 in December from 51.5 in November, Caixin Media Co. and S&P Global said Monday. The index has remained above the 50 mark separating contraction from expansion for two years, Caixin said. Both business activity and total new orders increased last month.

China will sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds in 2025 to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, a state planner official said on Friday, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revitalise the faltering economy, Reuters reported. Special treasury bonds will be used to fund large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, said Yuan Da, deputy secretary-general of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) at a press conference.