China’s property market debt could weigh on the country for years

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China’s property market debt could weigh on the country for years, economist George Magnus warns

• Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese real estate developer Kaisa Group Holdings were halted on Friday after news that it had missed a payment on a wealth management product.
  
• A research paper by renowned Harvard Professor of Public Policy and Economics Kenneth Rogoff and IMF Economist Yuanchen Yang estimated that the real estate sector accounts for around 29% of China’s GDP.
  
• “If 29% of GDP just marks time, let alone declines, for the next 10 years ... you will know all about it,” George Magnus, economist and research associate at the China Centre at Oxford University, said.
  

The debt problems facing China’s property sector are likely to cause a period of stagnation which affects both the domestic and global economy, according to George Magnus, economist and research associate at the China Centre at Oxford University.

Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese real estate developer Kaisa Group Holdings were halted on Friday after news that it had missed a payment on a wealth management product. This came on the back of the protracted saga involving debt-ridden developer China Evergrande Group.

Of the challenges facing the world’s second-largest economy in the coming years, Magnus argued that debt — relating to the property sector in particular — could be the most problematic.

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