Headlines

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.

Some British pension funds are being told by asset managers to come up with more cash to support their hedging positions after a recent jump in borrowing costs, but pensions advisers told Reuters this week the market was behaving in an orderly way, Reuters reported. XPS and Gallagher said some funds had been instructed to post more cash to maintain derivatives positions they hold through so-called Liability Driven Investment (LDI) strategies.

French factory production recovered a little toward the end of last year in a glimpse of optimism for the beleaguered sector, the Wall Street Journal reported. Manufacturing output rose 0.2% on month in November, figures from French statistics agency Insee showed Friday. That came against expectations for a third-straight month of decline in production, according to economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal.

Several members of Mexico’s central bank expressed concern about the inflationary impact of tariffs that could be imposed by US President-elect Donald Trump after he takes office on Jan. 20, Bloomberg News reported. Members of the Banco de Mexico board said that the 25% tariffs that Trump pledged in November to impose on Mexico and Canada have created additional uncertainty for the economy, according to the minutes of the Dec. 19 monetary policy decision published Thursday. Despite the board’s willingness to forge ahead with cuts, tariffs and other factors led to notes of caution.

Ghana’s new leader’s pick to be finance minister, Cassiel Ato Forson, said the West African nation hopes to secure more support from the International Monetary Fund and other multilaterals, Bloomberg News reported. “We are committed to working with the IMF and are working hard to get more funding from the IMF, World Bank and international development partners,” Forson told reporters in the capital Accra on Thursday.

Asia accounts for 60% of global crypto users and contributes the largest share of worldwide liquidity, according to Foresight Ventures, a crypto-focused venture capital firm, TheStreet.com reported. On Jan. 9, Foresight Ventures released its latest “GTM in Asia” report, co-published with Primitive Ventures, noting Asia’s influence in the global cryptocurrency landscape. Five Asian nations feature in the 2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index, with India securing the top position, Indonesia ranking third, Vietnam placing fifth, the Philippines coming in eighth, and Pakistan taking the ninth spot.

A U.K. council facing a £33.6m funding gap will effectively declare itself bankrupt unless the government allows it exceptional financial support, BBC.com reported. Worcestershire County Council is to ask the government for a "capitalisation direction" – described by the Institute for Government as a move that allows them to sell assets or borrow to fund day-to-day costs. Papers for a cabinet meeting on 16 January said the council needed £33.6m in 2025-26 and a further £43.6m in 2026-27.

Shareholders in Swedish electric car battery maker Northvolt agreed Wednesday at an extraordinary general meeting to allow the financially-strained company to continue operating and avoid liquidation, Agence France Presse reported. Northvolt filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S. in late November to enable it to restructure its debt and reorganize its business. he battery maker said in U.S. filings that it owed $5.8 billion.

Germany is grappling with its worst wave of bankruptcies since the 2008 financial crisis, as 364 major companies declared bankruptcy in 2024, marking a dramatic 30% increase from the previous year, AL24News.com reported. The economic downturn has also led to a hiring freeze across many industries, with fewer German companies recruiting new employees. Meanwhile, the number of firms implementing job cuts is rising steadily, affecting nearly every sector.