China, Japan and South Korea agreed on Sunday to restart cooperation and pave the way for a summit in the latest move to ease tensions between the Asian neighbours, Reuters reported. Even as China and the United States seek to mend frayed ties, including a summit this month between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, Beijing is concerned that Washington and its key regional allies are strengthening their three-way partnership.

China left benchmark lending rates unchanged at a monthly fixing on Monday, matching expectations, as a weaker yuan continued to limit further monetary easing and policymakers waited to see the effects of previous stimulus on credit demand, Reuters reported. Recent data shows the recovery in the world's second-largest economy remains patchy with industrial output and retail sales surprising on the upside but deflation gathering pace and few signs the struggling property market will bounce back any time soon.

In Shenzhen, a metropolis born of China’s economic prosperity, Paibang Village is a reminder of the city’s modest past and the challenges ahead for reviving the country’s property sector. Paibang is what China calls an urban village, a labyrinth of low-slung apartment buildings and mom-and-pop storefronts connected by a maze of alleyways and narrow roads. There are hundreds of them in Shenzhen, a municipality of 18 million people next to Hong Kong, and thousands of such villages across China.

Office workers are not the only ones grumbling about the unattractiveness of Qianhai, a special economic zone where Chinese dreams of global financial might and economic prosperity that once seemed inevitable are now darkened by half-empty skyscrapers and shopping malls as well as barely used motorways, Reuters reported. This Shenzhen appendix opened for business more than a decade ago after an initial investment of $45 billion, with state media calling it mainland China's own Hong Kong: a future international tech and finance hub; a testbed for liberalising markets and information access.

China's industrial output and retail sales growth beat expectations in October, but the underlying economic picture highlighted significant pockets of weakness with the crisis-hit property sector continuing to forestall a full-blown revival, Reuters reported. The world's second-biggest economy has struggled to mount a strong post-COVID recovery as distress in the housing market, local government debt risks, slow global growth and geopolitical tensions have dented momentum.

China plans to provide at least 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) of low-cost financing to the nation’s urban village renovation and affordable housing programs in its latest effort to shore up the struggling property market, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China would inject funds in phases through policy banks with the money ultimately trickling down to households for home purchases, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.

China has ordered its local governments to halt public-private partnership projects identified as "problematic" and replaced a 10% budget spending allowance for these ventures with a vetting mechanism by Beijing as it tries to curb municipal debt risks, Reuters reported. The guidelines were mentioned in a cabinet document that was circulated among local governments, policy banks and state lenders last month, said the two sources with knowledge of the matter. The latest guidelines have not been reported previously.

Maike Metals International Co., once one of the most powerful traders in China’s massive copper market, filed for bankruptcy after more than a year of debt struggles, Bloomberg News reported. The firm founded by entrepreneur He Jinbi in the early 1990s was until recently responsible for more than a quarter of China’s copper imports. On Monday, Maike said the Intermediate People’s Court of Xi’an accepted its filing, a step toward a final ruling by the court to wind up the company.

China’s show of support for one of its top builders has reinvigorated the property sector, but investors want to see more concrete measures before diving back in, Bloomberg News reported. Market players are looking for Beijing to unveil further steps to reverse a long-running slump after a pivotal week where authorities signaled their backing for China Vanke Co., the second-largest developer by contracted sales. On Tuesday, policymakers met firms including Vanke, Longfor Group Holdings Ltd, Gemdale Corp (China) and Poly Developments and Holdings Group Co.