Folks,

China slow down....

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/business...th.html?hp&_r=0

<< HONG KONG — After almost two decades of nearly unceasing increases in real estate prices and construction across China, one of the world’s longest-running bull markets finally seems to be stalling, with broad consequences for the country’s economy and possibly its politics.

Prices are falling for both new and old apartments. The volume of deals is drying up. And developers are pulling back, furloughing workers and delaying new projects. In the latest sign, housing starts plummeted 25 percent in April from a year ago, the Chinese government announced on Tuesday.>>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-b...wn-economy.html


<< Wei Yao, from Société Générale, said the property sector makes up 20pc of China’s economy directly, but the broader nexus is much larger. Financial links includes $2.5 trillion of bank mortgages and direct lending to developers; a further $1 trillion of shadow bank credit to builders; $2.3 trillion of corporate and local government borrowing “collateralised” on real estate or revenues from land use.

“The aggregate exposure of China’s financial system to the property market is as much as 80pc of GDP. This is not a sector that can go wrong if China wants to avoid a hard landing,” she said. The risk is that several cities will face a controlled crash along the lines of Wenzhou, where prices have been falling non-stop for two years and have dropped 20pc. >>

Dreamer