For months, the unwinding of China Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer, played out like a slow-moving train crash. After filing for bankruptcy protection last month — nearly two years after the company defaulted on payments to some creditors — Evergrande appeared on the path toward a more typical debt restructuring for creditors. But it now has more than $300 billion in debt, and any semblance of normalcy is gone. In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Evergrande announced on Thursday that Hui Ka Yan, the company’s…
Tag: Building (Construction)
Workers Plow Through Great Wall of China, Leaving a Hole
Two workers have been detained in northern China after local authorities said they plowed through a section of the country’s Great Wall with an excavator, leaving a gaping hole. The pair, a 38-year-old man and 55-year-old-woman, caused “irreversible damage” when they used the construction equipment to widen an existing gap and create a shortcut that was large enough to drive the excavator through it, the Youyu County Public Security Bureau said in a news release last week. The security bureau said it was first notified of the hole in a…
China’s Biggest Homebuilder Fights to Survive as Economic Crisis Deepens
When Country Garden, the biggest developer in China’s increasingly troubled real estate sector, published its annual report in April, the cover design exuded hope: a phoenix spreading its wings. The company said the image showed that China’s economy was “back on track” and that this year would see “growth soaring to new heights.” That was wishful thinking. Shortly after the report’s release, China’s nascent economic recovery lost steam and an already sluggish real estate market started to collapse. At Country Garden, presales of unfinished apartments, a crucial indicator of future…
Europe Frets U.S. Battery Factory Subsidies Will Hurt, Not Help
European leaders complained for years that the United States was not doing enough to fight climate change. Now that the Biden administration has devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to that cause, many Europeans are complaining that the United States is going about it the wrong way. That new critique is born of a deep fear in Germany, France, Britain and other European countries that Washington’s approach will hurt the allies it ought to be working with, luring away much of the new investments in electric car and battery factories not already…
They Poured Their Savings Into Homes That Were Never Built
To Tang Chao, the apartment in northeast China was where he and his wife were going to start a new life together. They put down tens of thousands of dollars for it. But months past its scheduled completion, a concrete shell with wiring protruding from the walls and piles of dirt on the floor was all there was to show for the expense. Soon, even their marriage unraveled. In another city, a man bought a space for a grocery business he thought would help give his young son a better…
China Is Finally Trying to Fix Its Housing Crisis
More than a year after one of China’s biggest real estate developers began to collapse, trouble has rippled through cities across the country. Dozens of other developers have also missed debt payments, the sale of new homes has plunged and construction cranes have come to a standstill at many sites. This week the Chinese government, which until now has stayed largely on the sidelines of the country’s housing crash, has taken its most forceful steps so far to try to minimize the damage from the turmoil that has enveloped China…
U.K. Moves to Attract Financing for Nuclear Plants
The British government said on Tuesday that it would introduce legislation enabling a form of financing for nuclear power stations that it hopes will attract investors willing to put up billions of pounds to build new facilities. The government’s move, which would require consumers to help pay for these plants as they are being built, is expected to provide a green light for a long-delayed new nuclear station northeast of London, estimated to cost £20 billion ($27.5 billion). The British subsidiary of Électricité de France, the French utility, has done…
China Pledges to Stop Building Coal Plants Abroad: Explained
Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, said on Tuesday that his country would stop building coal-burning power plants overseas, a major shift by the world’s second-biggest economy to move away from its support of the fossil fuel. China “will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad,” he told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. The news comes amid a broad international effort to reduce coal use and to keep global temperatures from rising at their current pace, which scientists have warned could be disastrous. The announcement by China, which is…
Beyond Evergrande’s Troubles, a Slowing Chinese Economy
BEIJING — Global markets have watched anxiously as a huge and deeply indebted Chinese property company flirts with default, fearing that any collapse could ripple through the international financial system. China Evergrande Group, the developer, on Wednesday said it reached a deal that might give it some breathing room in the face of a bond payment due the next day. But that murky arrangement doesn’t address the broader threat for Beijing’s top leaders and the global economic outlook: China’s growth is slowing, and the government may have to work harder…