China

The National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) will resolutely follow the spirit of the Central Financial Work Conference, Central Economic Work Conference and the recent two sessions, and carry out regulation using both "teeth and thorns" to ensure that no systemic risks arise, Li Yunze, head of the administration, said on Friday. The NFRA is committed to following the path of financial development with Chinese characteristics, Li said. He said the administration will continue to boost the high-quality development of the financial sector, make significant efforts in financial technology, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance, and digital finance, and continuously deepen financial reform and opening-up, according to a press release appeared on the NFRA website o...

China's yearslong real-estate debt crisis has already taken down the property giant Evergrande, which is undergoing liquidation. Home sales and prices in the country have also slumped. But China's property crisis could still get worse. "I think, at the moment, there's an assumption in the market that the levels of activity have come down so much that things can't get much worse, but that's not really true," Charlene Chu, a senior analyst at Autonomous Research, told Bloomberg TV on Monday. Chu — who issued warnings about China's debt more than a decade ago — said China was still "very much in the middle of a collapse in the property sector, and this could still get uglier than it already is." Concerns grow over another Chinese real-estate giantChu's assessment of China's pr...

A more nuanced look at China’s economic indicators is necessary to understand current trends. In recent years, there has been a notable shift among certain Western politicians, media outlets and think tanks regarding their perspective on China’s developmental trajectory. The once-popular theory of an imminent Chinese collapse, famously asserted by Gordon G. Chang over two decades ago, has finally begun to lose traction. But there is still a lingering reluctance to acknowledge China’s sustained ascent, prompting the emergence of a new buzzword: “Peak China.” As the second-largest GDP globally for 15 consecutive years, China’s economic landscape has naturally witnessed expansion alongside moderated growth rates, a phenomenon well-recognized in economic theory. In the context of China’...

Xi Jinping is ignoring the country’s biggest economic problems. The Chinese government outlined on Monday its plan to boost the country’s sluggish economic growth, but experts say it fell short of the kind of transformative strategy necessary to fix the country’s debt and consumer confidence crises. China has enjoyed miraculous economic expansion for the past few decades, solidifying itself as a global power and building an emergent middle class. It achieved that growth through a blend of the governing regime’s Communist principles and a strategic embrace of the free market, creating a novel form of state-guided capitalism that ushered in a new era of economic prosperity. Recent economic stagnation, however, has called this model into question, forcing the Chinese government to r...

Premier Li Qiang made the announcement at the opening of the annual National People's Congress (NPC) on Tuesday. Mr Li acknowledged that China's economic performance had faced "difficulties", adding that many of these had "yet to be resolved". It comes as China struggles to reinvigorate its once-booming economy. "Risks and potential dangers in real estate, local government debt, and small and medium financial institutions were acute in some areas," he said. "Under these circumstances, we faced considerably more dilemmas in making policy decisions and doing our work." A series of other measures to help tackle the country's slow recovery from the pandemic were also announced, including the development of new initiatives to tackle problems in the country's crisis-hit property sec...

SHANGHAI: China's government bonds rose on Friday, as market participants bet on further monetary easing following the biggest ever reduction in the mortgage rate while risk appetite fell slightly as local shares snapped their winning streak. The country slashed the benchmark mortgage rate by 25 basis points this week, the largest cut since the reference rate was introduced in 2019 and far more than analysts had expected. The deep cut prompted market expectations that more policy easing would come to shore up a recovery in the world's second-largest economy. Thirty-year treasury futures for March delivery rose to their highest level since the contract was launched in 2023, while benchmark 30-year yields fell to 2.5720%, the lowest on record. Meanwhile, the yield on the benchmark ...

HSBC was stung by China’s economic slowdown after a “messy” quarter including a $3bn (£2.4bn) writedown sent its share price tumbling by 8pc in one of the worst falls in the bank’s history. China’s crippling economic woes prompted the Asia-focused lender to slash the value of its investment in Bank of Communications (BoCom), one of China’s “Big Five”. The devaluation of the Argentine peso in December because hyperinflation in the country also shaved $500m from profits. This contributed to an 80pc fall in fourth-quarter profits to $1bn, marring an annual record as gains for the entire year rose to $30.3bn. Citigroup analyst Andrew Coombs said the final quarter was “messy” due to the one-off impairments, with the share price fall wiping £10bn from the bank’s value. HSBC chief...