BEIJING/HONG KONG: China’s stimulus plans to fill consumer pockets to meet its 2024 growth target breaks away from a decades-old policy playbook, but making household demand a sustainable driver of development instead of investment is a long path paved with tough choices. Reuters reported last week that Beijing plans to issue sovereign bonds worth about … Read more
Beijing: Three Chinese megacities on Monday eased restrictions on buying homes and Beijing’s central bank said it would ask financial institutions to lower mortgage rates, as the country seeks to pull itself out of a housing slump. The measures are the latest in a raft of pledges out of Beijing since last week aimed at … Read more
BEIJING: Chinese policymakers will likely step up measures to at least help the economy meet an increasingly challenging growth target for 2024, analysts and policy advisers say, with a sharper focus on boosting demand to fight persistent deflationary pressures. Official data showed the world’s second-largest economy slowed broadly in August, fuelling expectations for more stimulus. … Read more
Beijing: China said Tuesday it would launch an anti-dumping probe into Canadian canola and chemical products, in apparent retaliation for Ottawa’s new restrictions on imports of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month announced tariffs of 100 percent on Chinese EVs, accusing Beijing of “not playing by the same rules as … Read more
BEIJING/HONG KONG: China’s local governments have fallen behind on their debt issuance plans as scrutiny mounts over potentially wasteful infrastructure investment, fuelling talk that such funds could be used in other areas to stimulate growth back towards target. Investment at a municipal level has for years been one of the most efficient tools to stabilise … Read more
Two key Pakistani ministers are camping in Beijing to discuss the cash-strapped country’s request for rescheduling its outstanding debts with China linked to the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Muhammad Aurangzeb, Pakistan’s Minister for Finance and Revenue, and Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Laghari, the Minister for Energy (Power Division) are both in Beijing for the last … Read more
Four days of top-level economic meetings between the United States and China concluded in Beijing on Monday with no major breakthrough, but the world’s two largest economies agreed to hold more discussions to address rising friction over trade, investment and national security. The conversation is poised to become even more difficult, however, as hopes of … Read more
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Nepal remains a non-starter despite recent assertion by the Himalayan state’s deputy prime minister that the two countries will “very soon” sign a plan to implement the ambitious infrastructure programme. Nepal and China signed a memorandum of understanding on BRI in 2017. Nearly seven years since, not a … Read more
Xi Jinping’s crackdown on official corruption has ripped through a secretive missile force, the Communist Party elite, the national football team, and now risks hammering a finance industry already grappling with an economic slowdown. Since rising to power a decade ago, Xi has waged a constant campaign against deep-seated graft that has led to the … Read more
The incident has amassed a lot of reactions on Chinese social media platforms. A woman in China recently made headlines after she was granted “mood leave” by her company as she was unhappy because it had not snowed where she lives, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. The incident has amassed … Read more
