Climate realities move markets

<p>Kia ora, </p><p>Welcome to Tuesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect New Zealand.</p><p>I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.</p><p>Today we lead with news of some 'big moves' by some big companies on the climate front.</p><p>But first, remember the US and Canada are still on holiday today.</p><p>In China, eyes are on a resurfacing financial threat: <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/China-debt-crunch/China-s-souring-developer-loans-raise-fear-of-financial-contagion" target="_blank"><strong>bad loans in the property development sector</strong></a>. Developers expanded aggressively post-pandemic, but didn't factor in the impact of tougher lending and leverage rules, and that has sparked a liquidity crisis and missed debt payments for a number of large players. Policy makers are worried about a potential contagion.</p><p>In Singapore, a kind of regional poster-child for opening up, delta is getting them to change course with <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/expanded-testing-health-risk-warnings-and-alerts-among-new-measures-to-control" target="_blank"><strong>reimposed restrictions</strong></a>.</p><p>German <a href="https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2021/09/PE21_415_421.html;jsessionid=B2F5A95DFA84C6703D87FA697FB0CA47.live712" target="_blank"><strong>factory orders</strong></a> were expected to be down -1% in July from Jun, but in fact they rose +3.4%, building on the prior month's healthy rise. Export orders were where the surprise gains came from.</p><p>And some of that rise comes from strong orders for electric cars. BMW <a href="https://www.mining.com/web/bmw-orders-up-24-billion-of-batteries-as-ev-demand-grows/" target="_blank"><strong>said</strong></a> it has orders for NZ$33 bln in electric batteries, up more than +60% in just half a year. They claim they are just responding to customer order levels.</p><p><a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/aluminum" target="_blank"><strong>The