Hui Ka Yan, once one of the world’s richest men, led China Evergrande through its rise and fall. His failures in the aftermath made the property developer’s collapse a bigger problem for the country’s slumping housing market. In 2021, when Evergrande slid into financial distress, the real estate giant turned to government officials for help resolving a mountain of debt that it couldn’t repay. Chinese authorities and regulators agreed to help defuse the developer’s risks—with conditions.

China’s local authorities are finding it more expensive to sell bonds, the latest sign of rising stress as policymakers ramp up borrowings to stimulate growth and defuse short-term payment risks, Bloomberg News reported. Of the local government yuan bonds sold so far this year, 50 carry coupons with a premium of more than 25 basis points with comparable sovereign debt, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. That’s the most since 2020.

Kenya’s President William Ruto sought $1 billion more in loans from China Monday, despite rising public debt that has now reached $70 billion in the Eastern African country, according to National Treasury figures for 2022/2023, the Associated Press reported. President Ruto was was one of a number of global leaders in Beijing to attend the tenth anniversary meeting of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the ambitious plan that aims to connect Africa, Asia and Europe through massive infrastructure and energy projects.

The founding family of Country Garden recently loaned the embattled Chinese property developer $300 million interest free, and the family was also trying to sell its private jet, a Chinese online news outlet,The Paper, reported on Friday. Citing insiders, The Paper said the family was seeking to support liquidity for China's largest private property developer, which has missed coupon payments on some dollar bonds since last month, but has not defaulted.

Big banks in Britain are preparing for any future escalation of Western sanctions on China and have shared their "scenario planning" with the British and U.S. governments, a senior banking official has told Reuters. The project involves sharing lessons learned from other sanctions frameworks, including those on Russia, and discussions about the effect any measures imposed on China might have, Neil Whiley, director of sanctions at lobby group UK Finance, said.

Lackluster inflation and declining trade numbers in China have stoked concerns that the world’s second-largest economy is still on shaky footing, despite recent signs of stabilization, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices unexpectedly flatlined in September after rebounding in August, pointing to weak demand and suggesting only a limited effect from Beijing’s recent efforts to put a floor under the economy. Outbound shipments also continued to contract last month, though at a less steep pace than August, according to official data released on Friday.

China has for the first time issued a notice prohibiting domestic brokerages and their overseas units from taking on new mainland clients for offshore trading, according to an official document seen by Reuters and confirmed by four sources. New investments by existing mainland clients are also to be "strictly monitored" to prevent investors from bypassing China's foreign exchange controls, said the notice.

China reached a tentative debt agreement with Sri Lanka, front-running separate talks the International Monetary Fund and other creditors are holding with the South Asian nation and catching them by surprise, Bloomberg News reported. The deal between Export-Import Bank of China and Sri Lanka was reached late last month, China’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, without providing details of the pact. The IMF, Paris Club members including Japan, and other lenders like India are expected to hold talks this week in Morocco on a debt restructuring plan.

As more Chinese property developers move towards restructuring billions of dollars of debt, their offshore creditors are expected to face another setback - the prospects of revamp terms being tightened due to a worsening outlook for the county's real estate sector, Reuters reported. So far, developers accounting for 40% of Chinese home sales have defaulted on their debt obligations since 2021, according to JPMorgan. Those defaulted companies, mostly private, have issued around $110 billion worth of high-yield offshore bonds.