China

Real estate developer Country Garden Holdings is readying itself to become the first Chinese issuer to sell a sukuk, announcing on October 5 its intention to print an Islamic bond based on the shariah principle of Murabahah.

The renminbi became the fourth most used currency for payments in August, overtaking the yen with a share of 2.79% of global payments, beating the Japanese currency by a small margin of 0.03%, Swift said in an October 6 report.

Chinese property developer Gemdale Corp has completed the buyback of three bonds, securing drastically different results for the dollar and renminbi-denominated portions.

Luxembourg’s local fund industry association published a guide for institutions who want to join the RMB qualified foreign institutional investor (RQFII). It comes after the country was awarded a quota of Rmb50bn in April 2015.

Dongfeng Motor Group is set to meet investors ahead of what will be its first offshore bond. The company has opted for a euro deal as it aims to use proceeds to pay back part of a bridge loan in that currency.

People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has lifted the threshold for multinational corporations (MNCs) to use the cross-border cash pooling scheme across China. The scheme had originally been introduced in the Shanghai pilot free trade zone (FTZ) in early 2014.

Chinese company Minsheng Financial Leasing has cut the size of its onshore loan to $150m, a move that has seen it reduce the tenor and save on pricing with its revamped deal.

In this round-up, Hong Kong and Taiwan RMB deposits shrink slightly while RMB cross-border trade settlement surges to new records in both Hong Kong and China, the RQFII programme reaches Rmb410bn ($80bn), Georgia and Kyrgyzstan work on establishing RMB swap lines with China, and Nanning authorities plan a new China-ASEAN currency index.

JP Morgan has made two senior hires to its China investment banking business, this time poaching from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Rothschild as it continues to build its franchise in the country.

The People’s Bank of China announced just ahead of the Chinese national holiday of October 1 that it would allow foreign central banks, sovereign wealth funds and international financial organisations to trade in the onshore foreign exchange (FX) markets.

China Development Bank sealed a $1.56bn dual-currency bond on September 29, coming to the market on a day of immense volatility in global stocks. But anchor orders helped save the deal, which saw very little demand from international investors.

There was a time when Bogotá’s public transport system looked a bit like that computer game where the frog has to get across a highway without being flattened. The streets were gridlocked with buses, and not with any sense of co-ordination among them.