By Karen Freifeld, Andrea Shalal and David Shepardson

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order that will prohibit some new U.S. investment in China in sensitive technologies like computer chips and require government notification in other tech sectors.

The long-awaited order authorizes the U.S. Treasury secretary to prohibit or restrict U.S. investments in Chinese entities in three sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain artificial intelligence systems.

The administration said the restrictions would apply to "narrow subsets" of the three areas but did not give specifics. The proposal is open for public input.

The order is aimed at preventing American capital and expertise from helping China develop technologies that could support its military modernization and undermine U.S. national security. The measure targets private equity, venture capital, joint ventures and greenfield investments.

Biden, a Democrat, said in a letter to Congress he was declaring a national emergency to deal with the threat of advancement by countries like China "in sensitive technologies and products critical to the military, intelligence, surveillance or cyber-enabled capabilities."

SEMICONDUCTORS A PRIORITY

The proposal focuses on investments in Chinese companies developing software to design computer chips and tools to manufacture them. The U.S., Japan and the Netherlands dominate those fields, and the Chinese government has been working to build homegrown alternatives.

The White House said Biden consulted allies on the plan and incorporated feedback from Group of Seven nations.

"For too long, American money has helped fuel the Chinese military’s rise," said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. "Today the United States is taking a strategic first step to ensure American investment does not go to fund Chinese military advancement."

The regulations will only affect future investments, not existing ones, Treasury said, but it may ask for disclosure of prior transactions.

The move could fuel tensions between the world's two largest economies. The Chinese embassy in Washington said it was "very disappointed" by the measure.

U.S. officials insisted the prohibitions were intended to address "the most acute" national security risks and not to separate the two countries' highly interdependent economies.

Republicans said the order was rife with loopholes, such as only applying to future investment, and was not aggressive enough.

SOME EXEMPTIONS EXPECTED

The order will prohibit some deals and require investors to notify the government of their plans on others.

The Treasury said it anticipates exempting "certain transactions, including potentially those in publicly traded instruments and intracompany transfers from U.S. parents to subsidiaries."

The Chinese tech industry, once a magnet for U.S. venture capital, has already seen a drastic decline in U.S. investment amid intensifying geopolitical tension.

Last year, total U.S.-based venture-capital investment in China plummeted to $9.7 billion from $32.9 billion in 2021, according to PitchBook data. This year so far, U.S. V.C. investors only put $1.2 billion into Chinese tech startups.

The measure is expected to be implemented next year, a person briefed on the order said, after multiple rounds of public comment, including an initial 45-day comment period.

REPUBLICAN SEES MANY LOOPHOLES

Republican Senator Marco Rubio said the Biden administration' plan was "almost laughable."

"It is riddled with loopholes, explicitly ignores the dual-use nature of important technologies, and fails to include industries China’s government deems critical," he said.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said the White House had not heeded "China’s repeated expression of deep concerns" about the plan.

The spokesman said more than 70,000 U.S. companies do business in China. The restrictions will hurt both Chinese and American businesses, interfere with normal cooperation and reduce investor confidence in the U.S., he said.

The Semiconductor Industry Association said it hopes the order will enable "U.S. chip firms to compete on a level-playing field and access key global markets, including China."

Emily Benson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan policy research organization, said key questions are how the plan affects U.S. allies and how China responds.

By Tom Sims

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany has long benefited from an era of cheap money that fuelled a decade-long boom in real estate, but now the sector is grappling with a major turn of fortune.

In the latest signs of stress in the sector, Germany's largest real estate group Vonovia posted multi-billion euro losses and writedowns, and job growth for construction workers has stagnated.

Here are some key questions as the crisis unfolds:

WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT GERMANY?

Weakness in real estate has also emerged in the United States and Sweden, but Germany is significant because it is Europe's largest economy and the biggest real estate investment market on the continent.

The property sector makes up roughly a fifth of economic output and one in ten jobs, according to the German Property Federation.

HOW BAD IS IT?

New construction plummeted in Germany during the first half of the year, dropping 47% compared with the average of the past two years, and new building permits plunged 27% during the first five months.

Home prices also declined in the first quarter by the most since Germany's statistics office began keeping data, down 6.8% from a year earlier.

In September, data will show to what extent the trend is continuing and shed light on the state of construction jobs.

"The current crisis will certainly continue for a while yet," said Sven Carstensen, chief executive of Bulwiengesa, a property consultant and analysis firm.

WHAT'S BEHIND THE SLUMP?

The main factor has been a sudden and rapid rise in interest rates by the European Central Bank as it clamps down on the highest inflation rates in decades, but there's more to it.

Building costs have also soared, and the demand for offices and retail space has waned after the pandemic. The Ukraine war has also made German property seem riskier for foreign investors.

"If you are an investor from the Middle East, Germany seems to be quite close to Ukraine. They say, 'I want to allocate money to the US and Asia and not to Germany,'" said Florian Schwalm, a consultant with EY.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Germany, whose population has recently grown as millions of migrants and refugees from Ukraine flock to the country, aims to build 400,000 apartments a year but is struggling with its goals.

Politicians, ministries and the property industry will convene with Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sept. 25 to try to find solutions, and some are already jockeying with proposals to rejuvenate the sector.

WHAT ARE THE IDEAS?

Last week, Klara Geywitz, Germany's housing minister, called for additional tax breaks for writing off the costs of construction for new residential buildings.

The president of the German Property Federation, Andreas Mattner, is pressing the government to temporarily suspend a property sales tax and is demanding a low-interest rate credit program to support new residential building.

Tim-Oliver Mueller, head of the German Construction Industry Federation, is pushing for an emergency package of measures that would include the cut-price sale of public land for building rentals.

By Jarrett Renshaw

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Biden administration moved on Tuesday to boost wages and worker protections on federally funded construction projects, drawing the ire of trade groups that warn the union-friendly changes could curtail investment.

Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated the new labor reforms at a Philadelphia union hall, calling the administration unapologetically pro-union.

"When union wages go up, everyone's wages go up. When unions are strong, America is strong," she said, adding that the policies would give workers a "raise."

The trip marks the latest in a string of visits by U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration to the electoral battleground state of Pennsylvania to court unions, a core constituency of his Democratic Party even as many rank-and-file members favor Republicans.

By making changes to a 1930s law, the Labor Department seeks to boost wages and protections as the federal government spends billions of dollars on new roads and bridges, and expanding industries like computer chips and green energy.

The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 tasks the government with establishing wage floors - known as prevailing wages - that apply to construction projects funded by the federal government. Today, it applies to more than one million construction workers on $200 billion of such projects, the administration said.

Biden ordered the review of the labor law early in his administration. It will become effective in roughly 60 days.

Trade groups have long criticized the prevailing wage requirements, saying they discourage small businesses from seeking federal contracts.

The rule changes the way prevailing wages are calculated, basing them on the average wages paid to at least 30% of local workers, instead of the 50% threshold set in 1983. That raises the wage the government can set because they can eliminate more lower-wage workers from the calculation.

The Labor Department must currently periodically survey contractors and other parties to update wage rates, but will now be able to adopt prevailing wages determined by local governments, issue wage determinations for jobs when data is lacking and update outdated wage rates.

The change will add a new anti-retaliation provision to protect workers who raise concerns and strengthens the government's ability to withhold money from a contractor in order to pay employees their lost wages.

"This is yet another Biden administration handout to organized labor on the backs of taxpayers, small businesses and the free market," said Associated Builders and Contractors official Ben Brubeck.

Biden won 57% of union households nationwide in the 2020 election compared with 40% for Trump, according to Edison Research.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's household borrowing grew in July for a fourth straight month and by the biggest amount in almost two years, central bank data showed on Wednesday, amid mounting worries by policymakers.

Total borrowing from banks increased by 6.0 trillion won ($4.55 billion) to stand at a fresh record high of 1,068.1 trillion won at the end of July, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

It was bigger than the monthly increase of 5.8 trillion won in June and the biggest since September 2021.

Growth in mortgage loans eased to 6.0 trillion won from 6.9 trillion won the previous month, but the fall in other loans softened to a marginal 0.01 trillion won from 1.2 trillion won.

There was some demand for stock investment, contributing to higher borrowing, and seasonal factors at the start of the second half of the year, a BOK official told a briefing.

South Korea's central bank held interest rates steady for a fourth straight meeting last month, but the board members kept the door open for further tightening, expressing concern about rising household debts among others.

The country's financial regulator said in a separate statement that it would prepare a pre-emptive measure for stable management of household debts in the second half, if deemed necessary.

($1 = 1,318.4400 won)

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's consumer prices dropped in July for the first time since February 2021, while factory gate prices continued their declines, data showed on Wednesday, as lacklustre demand weighed on the economy.

The consumer price index (CPI) for the month dropped 0.3% year-on-year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, a slightly slower fall than the median estimate for a 0.4% decrease in a Reuters poll. CPI was unchanged in June.

The producer price index (PPI) fell for a 10th consecutive month, down 4.4% from a year earlier after a 5.4% drop the previous month. That compared with a forecast for a 4.1% fall.

China's economic recovery slowed after a brisk start in the first quarter, as demand at home and abroad weakened. Authorities have rolled out a flurry of policy measures to support the economy, with more steps expected.

By Ann Saphir

(Reuters) -Americans borrowed more than ever on their credit cards in the last quarter, the New York Federal Reserve Bank said on Tuesday, with balances surpassing $1 trillion for the first time even as overall household debt loads were largely unchanged.

Credit card balances rose by $45 billion to $1.03 trillion in the second quarter, the regional Fed bank said in its latest quarterly household debt and credit report, reflecting robust consumer spending as well as higher prices due to inflation, researchers said.

Household debt ticked up 0.1% to $17.06 trillion, as mortgage balances - the biggest portion, and typically the biggest driver, of overall household debt - were largely unchanged.

Meanwhile, credit card delinquencies are at an 11-year high, as measured using a four-quarter average, the data showed.

But the quarter-to-quarter trend appeared less alarming, with New York Fed researchers noting a leveling out near pre-pandemic levels in the most recent two quarters.

"Despite the many headwinds American consumers have faced over the last year - higher interest rates, post-pandemic inflationary pressures, and the recent banking failures - there is little evidence of widespread financial distress for consumers," New York Fed researchers wrote in a blog accompanying the data release.

Though rising balances will challenge some borrowers, and student loan borrowers may be squeezed as student loan repayments resume this fall, they wrote, "household credit shows some early signs of stabilizing at pre-pandemic health, albeit with higher nominal balances."

Student loan balances declined by $35 billion to $1.57 trillion in the second quarter, the data showed. New York Fed researchers attributed the decline to the timing of the academic year, as well as to some small forgiveness programs kicking in.

Mortgage originations increased to $393 billion in the April-June period, from a nine-year low of about $324 billion last quarter, the data showed.

They remain much lower than the average in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the impact of the U.S. central bank's aggressive interest rate hikes over the past 15 months. Overall mortgage balances ticked down to $12.01 trillion, from $12.04 trillion in the prior quarter, reflecting some changes in credit reporting that are expected to reverse next quarter, New York Fed researchers said.

Auto loan balances continued their long-term increase, rising by $20 billion to $1.58 trillion in the second quarter, the data showed. Originations rose about 11% to $179 billion, reflecting the sharp rise in car prices; the number of newly opened loans remains below pre-pandemic levels, the report said.

BEIJING (Reuters) -China's imports and exports fell much faster than expected in July, threatening growth prospects in the world's second-largest economy and heightening pressure for the government to provide fresh stimulus to prop up demand.

Imports dropped 12.4% in July year-on-year, customs data showed on Tuesday, missing a forecast fall of 5% in a Reuters poll. Exports contracted 14.5%, steeper than an expected 12.5% decline and the previous month's 12.4% fall.

Inbound shipments saw their biggest decline since January, when COVID infections shut shops and factories, crushing domestic demand.

The economy grew at a sluggish pace in the second quarter as demand weakened at home and abroad, prompting top leaders to promise further policy support and analysts to downgrade their growth forecasts for the year.

Poor imports and exports are the latest sign that third quarter growth could slow further, with construction, manufacturing and services activity, foreign direct investment, and industrial profits all weakening.

"Most measures of export orders point to a much greater decline in foreign demand than has so far been reflected in the customs data," said Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China Economics at Capital Economics. "And the near-term outlook for consumer spending in developed economies remains challenging, with many still at risk of recessions later this year, albeit mild ones."

China's yuan hit a three-week low and Asian stocks turned weaker after the data.

The state planner last week said stimulus would be forthcoming, but investors have so far been underwhelmed by proposals to expand consumption in the automobile, real estate and services sectors.

Beijing is looking for ways to boost domestic consumption without easing monetary policy too much lest it triggers large capital outflows as other major economies raise interest rates to tame soaring inflation.

That is affecting economic activity in the rest of Asia. South Korean exports to China fell 25.1% in July from a year earlier, the sharpest decline in three months.

China's trade surplus grew by $80.6 billion, beating a forecast of $70.6 billion in the poll.

(Reuters) -Electric-vehicle parts supplier Proterra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, making it the latest company to go belly up in an industry grappling with supply chain constraints, slowing demand and a funding drought.

The move comes weeks after Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale after failing to resolve a dispute over a promised investment from Foxconn.

Proterra, whose shares nearly halved in value after the bell, listed its assets and liabilities in the range of $500 million to $1 billion. The company had a market value of $362 million as of last close.

In January 2021, Proterra was valued at $1.6 billion, including debt, in a merger deal with a blank-check firm.

"We have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to efficiently scale," CEO Gareth Joyce said in a statement.

Proterra, which makes electric buses as well as battery packs, said it intends to continue to operate in the ordinary course of business. It plans to file the customary motions with the bankruptcy court to use existing capital to fund operations.

The company earlier this year announced plans for more job cuts and said it will combine electric bus and battery production in South Carolina as it looks to trim costs.

By Safiyah Riddle

(Reuters) - The share of U.S. consumers who believe it is a bad time to buy a home reached the highest level in at least 13 years in July, according to a survey released on Monday, as the supply of available properties remains scarce and home prices appear to have stopped cooling.

The portion of U.S. consumers saying now is a "bad time to buy" a new home increased by 4 percentage points in July to 82%, according to a report released Monday by Fannie Mae, the highest level since the mortgage finance giant began conducting the survey in 2010.

Consumers' outlook also appears to have taken a hit, with a net 17% of respondents expecting price increases in the next 12 months, the highest percentage in over a year.

The grim perception of the housing market comes as home costs appear to have hit a floor after downward price pressure from the Federal Reserve's 525 basis points worth of interest rate hikes since March 2022.

Persistently high home-buying costs are in large part due to limited housing stock, which has remained at historically low levels. Many homeowners are now unwilling to buy a new home that would require more expensive financing compared to mortgage costs locked in before the Fed started raising rates.

Willingness to sell was unchanged in July, according to the survey, with 64% of respondents indicating that now was a good time to sell - unchanged from the month prior.

Not all was pessimistic in the report, however, as confidence in the labor market and expected decreases in future mortgage rates pushed the overall Home Purchase Sentiment Index to 66.8, up 4 points year over year and 0.8 points from June.

"While consumers are reporting confidence in the components related to their personal financial situations, it’s unlikely we'll see housing sentiment catch up to other broader economic confidence measures until there is meaningful improvement to home purchase affordability," said Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae senior vice president and chief economist.

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Monday blocked the Biden administration from proceeding with another piece of its student debt relief agenda, a rule that would make it easier for people who are defrauded by their schools to have their loans forgiven.

At the request of a group representing for-profit colleges, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals prevented the rule from taking effect pending the outcome of an appeal to be heard in November.

The three-judge panel gave no reason for granting the emergency injunction sought by the trade group, Career Colleges and Schools of Texas (CCST), which is appealing a lower-court judge's decision not to block the U.S. Department of Education's rule.

CCST sued in February after the Education Department in October finalized a new rule changing a program that allows students to seek debt relief if their schools mislead them.

The new rule offers greater grounds for borrowers to get debt relief in cases of fraud and establishes a procedure for the Education Department to forgive debt for groups of students at schools where this occurred.

The rule is separate from Biden's more sweeping student debt relief plan. The Supreme Court in June blocked his administration from canceling $430 billion in student loan debt for 43 million borrowers. The Democratic president has since announced plans to provide relief for student loan borrowers using a different approach.

A spokesperson for the Education Department in a statement said it was reviewing Monday's order, adding that it "won't back down in our efforts to take on predatory colleges, provide relief to borrowers who have been cheated or had their school close, and hold institutions accountable for deceptive schemes."

Students who have received debt forgiveness through the program on deceptive loans have attended for-profit colleges including Corinthian Colleges and ITT (NYSE:ITT) Technical Institute.

CCST called the rule an unlawful and unconstitutional plan designed "to accomplish massive loan forgiveness for borrowers and to reallocate the correspondingly massive financial liability to institutions of higher education."

The panel's three judges -- Edith Jones, Kyle Duncan and Cory Wilson -- were all appointed by Republican presidents.