Chinese banks likely extended significantly more new loans in March than in February, according to a Reuters poll on Thursday, driven by improved credit demand ​and a seasonal rebound. Banks in China are expected to have issued around ​3.4 trillion yuan ($497.61 billion) in net new yuan loans last month, up ⁠sharply from the 900 billion yuan in February, based on the average estimate of 17 economists ​polled by Reuters.

Major global investment banks now expect China to keep official interest rates steady this year, scaling back earlier rate-cut calls, as the impact from the Middle East conflict appears ​limited, even as Beijing maintains a loose policy stance, Reuters reported. The receding rate cut expectations ‌also come as China holds up better than its regional peers amid the Iran war, while the broader economy has shown early signs of a rebound.

China’s unrelenting housing downturn is forcing the country’s banks to confront a thorny issue: sinking real estate values are pushing millions of mortgages underwater, increasing the risk of losses for lenders and property owners, Bloomberg News reported. Behind the scenes, Chinese bankers and officials are getting creative to contain the fallout. Several state-owned banks have approached cash-strapped borrowers and offered them payment holidays on their mortgages for as long as two years.

The energy shock caused by the war in the Middle East caught China, the world’s top buyer of oil, by surprise. But Beijing has been preparing for a crisis like this for years, the New York Times reported. China has stockpiled increasingly large amounts of oil. It has pursued renewable sources of energy like solar, wind and hydropower so aggressively that its demand for refined oil, diesel and gasoline is falling. And it has harnessed technology to reduce its reliance on the foreign-sourced raw materials that go into the massive output of its factories.

China's commerce ministry has initiated two counter-probes into U.S. ‌practices that hamper the flow of Chinese products into the United States, it said on Friday, refraining from immediate retaliation to U.S. measures announced earlier this month, Reuters reported. A trade truce between China and ​the U.S. has held since U.S. President Donald Trump met Chinese President ​Xi Jinping in October last year. Trump said earlier this week ⁠that he will visit Beijing in mid-May, as part of Washington's broader effort to ​reset relations in the Asia-Pacific region.

China is considering easing shareholding restrictions for some major investors, people with knowledge of the matter said, in a move aimed at broadening capital-raising options for commercial banks reeling ​from an economic slowdown, Reuters reported. The National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), the country's banking sector regulator, in January held a meeting with some bank representatives to discuss ‌the potential relaxation, said the people.

China said on Wednesday that Mexico's trade measures against it, including tariff increases, ​constitute trade and investment barriers and that it had ‌the right to take countermeasures, Reuters reported. The import duty hikes affect more than $30 billion worth of Chinese exports to Mexico, and could lead to estimated losses ​of about $9.4 billion to China's mechanical and electrical sectors, ​the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in its conclusion ⁠of an investigation into the measures.

A unit of Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison said on Tuesday it had widened its claims in ‌an international arbitration case against Panama, saying damages had now risen to more ‌than $2 billion, Reuters reported. Panama Ports Company, which for nearly three decades operated the Balboa and Cristobal terminals near the ​Panama Canal, said it had supplemented its claims in proceedings under the International Chamber of Commerce's arbitration rules, a month after what it described as the state's illegal takeover of two port terminals and company property.