China

China's latest property support measures have boosted transactions in its biggest cities, but activity in smaller localities is struggling to get off the ground, pointing to more pain ahead for most of the country's real estate market, Reuters reported. On May 17, China cut minimum mortgage rates and downpayments and instructed municipalities to buy unsold apartments to turn them into social housing, sparking dozens of announcements from cities easing policies under the new guidelines.

Property investment in China fell 10.1% in the first five months of 2024 from a year earlier, after dropping 9.8% in January-April, even as policymakers doubled down on efforts to support the ailing sector and shore up consumer confidence, Reuters reported. Property sales by floor area in January-May fell 20.3% from a year earlier, compared with a 20.2% slump in January-April, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed on Monday. New construction starts measured by floor area fell 24.2% on year, after a 24.6% drop in the first four months.

China’s central bank left a key interest rate steady for the tenth straight month, displaying caution on monetary easing given abundant liquidity and the pressure to prevent the yuan from weakening further, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China kept the rate on one-year policy loans, the so-called medium-term lending facility, steady at 2.5% on Monday, in line with the forecast in a Bloomberg survey. It withdrew a net 55 billion yuan ($7.6 billion) from the banking system to avoid excessive liquidity.

China ramped up warning against bond bulls via state-media reports as a debt-buying frenzy re-emerged, Bloomberg News reported. Funds investing in bonds will find it difficult to sustain the returns, which have exceeded 10% in some cases so far this year, the People’s Bank of China-backed Financial News said in a report Saturday. If yields rise, long-duration bonds will “face larger risks of a retreat in capital gains,” the report said, citing unidentified people close to regulators.

Lawyers appointed by the liquidators of China Evergrande Group (3333.HK), opens new tab are investigating some of the property developer's service providers including its former auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, to potentially recoup losses for creditors, Reuters reported. Evergrande, once China's largest property developer, was ordered to be liquidated by a Hong Kong court in January, after it failed to deliver a concrete restructuring plan for its $23 billion worth of offshore debt deemed to be in default.

New bank lending in China rebounded far less than expected in May and some key money gauges hit record lows, suggesting the world's second-largest economy is still struggling to regain its footing even as the central bank seeks to bolster confidence. Chinese banks issued 950 billion yuan ($130.93 billion) in new yuan loans last month, compared to 730 billion yuan in April, according to Reuters calculations based on the latest data from the People's Bank of China (PBOC) released on Friday.

Chinese electric-vehicle makers, increasingly a global force, have been bracing for months for the prospect of hefty tariffs in Europe, one of their most promising markets. When that day arrived on Wednesday, many were prepared, the Wall Street Journal reported. Some have already started building factories on the continent, while others have set up joint ventures with companies in the bloc.

China's central bank on Wednesday held a meeting to promote its financial support for affordable housing in a bid to accelerate sales of unsold housing stock, as a property crisis threatens growth in the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. The central bank last month set up a 300 billion yuan ($41.4 billion) relending loan facility for affordable housing, and Wednesday's virtual meeting hosted from the city of Jinan in eastern Shandong province is the latest effort to promote the facility among local governments and banks.

The European Union will apply additional duties of up to 38% on imported Chinese electric vehicles from July in a latest effort to protect home-grown manufacturers, Reuters reported. It has also launched several probes into whether Chinese clean tech producers are dumping subsidised goods on EU markets and whether Chinese-owned companies unfairly benefit from subsidies while operating inside the European Union. The European Commission, which is carrying out the investigations, says its aim is to prevent unfair competition and market distortion.

China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle’s shares fell sharply after Chinese authorities ordered the company to repay government subsidies due to its failure to meet contractual obligations, adding to its woes, the Wall Street Journal reported. Shares of the electric-vehicle unit of property developer China Evergrande Group slid 21% to 34 Hong Kong cents (4 U.S. cents) on Wednesday morning, on track for their largest one-day loss in almost a year.