Moody’s Sounds Alarm For China’s Troubled Property Sector

 

Ratings agency Moody’s sounded the alarm bell for China’s crisis-hit property sector on Thursday, downgrading its outlook to negative from stable, as it predicted an unrelenting fall in home sales despite government support.

Moody’s said it expected contracted sales to fall by about 5% over the next six to 12 months in China, and the impact of government measures to boost property purchases was likely to be short-lived and uneven.

 

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The outlook downgrade comes amid a string of debt defaults by cash-squeezed developers. China Evergrande Group, the world’s most indebted property developer, is at the centre of the crisis.

The crisis has also engulfed China’s largest private property developer Country Garden Holdings Co, which has been battling to avoid a default, having won approval from its creditors this week to extend the maturity of several onshore bonds.

Credit stress at Country Garden, which Moody’s rates as ‘Ca with a negative outlook’, has amplified investors’ risk aversion, Cedric Lai, an analyst at the agency said in a statement.

 

• Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara

 

Read more:

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Hui Ka Yan and The Rise and Fall of China Evergrande

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