Police in China have arrested several employees of a subsidiary of troubled Chinese property giant Evergrande Group (恆大集團), authorities said on Saturday.
Employees at Evergrande’s financial subsidiary, Evergrande Financial Wealth Management Co (恒大金融財富管理), were arrested, police in the southern city of Shenzhen said in a statement, without specifying the number of employees or the charges against them.
The statement called on the public to report any cases of suspected fraud to the authorities.
Photo: AFP
Evergrande’s enormous debt has contributed to the country’s deepening property market crisis, raising fears of a global spillover.
The property sector, which along with construction accounts for about a quarter of China’s GDP, is a key pillar of the country’s growth and has experienced a dazzling boom in recent decades.
However, the massive debt accrued by the industry’s biggest players — Evergrande had estimated debt of US$328 billion (307 billion euros) at the end of June — has been seen by Beijing in recent years as an unacceptable risk for China’s financial system and overall economic health.
Authorities have gradually tightened developers’ access to credit since 2020, and a wave of defaults has followed — notably that of Evergrande.
Another Chinese property giant, Country Garden Holdings Co (碧桂園), has narrowly avoided default in recent months, after reporting a record loss and debts of more than US$150 billion.
State-backed developer Sino-Ocean Group Holding Ltd (遠洋集團) on Friday announced it would suspend payments of offshore debts, the latest company to show signs of trouble.
Meanwhile, Moody’s rating agency on Thursday downgraded the outlook for China’s property sector from “stable” to “negative,” arguing that the government support measures will have only a short-term impact.
EXPANDING: WT Microelectronics Co distributes more than 10,000 products to Asian countries, but hopes that acquiring Future Electronics will expand its global reach Semiconductor component distributor WT Microelectronics Co (文曄) plans to fully acquire Canadian rival Future Electronics Inc in a US$3.8 billion deal, the company said yesterday. If approved by regulators in Taiwan and abroad in the first half of next year, the transaction would be the largest since Micron Technology Inc absorbed DRAM chipmaker Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技) for NT$132.6 billion in 2016. WT Microelectronics expects the deal to expand its reach to the US and European markets while broadening its product offerings and customer coverage, as both companies complement each other in terms of customer bases, product portfolios and geographical deployments, it
soft landing: The US’ rate-setting FOMC finds itself in a difficult situation as it seeks to address inflation through interest rate hikes while avoiding a recession The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday after a summer of mixed economic data, while leaving the door open to another hike if needed. The Fed has raised interest rates 11 times over the past 18 months, lifting its key lending rate to a level not seen for 22 years as it tackles inflation still stubbornly above its long-term target of 2 percent. Analysts and traders broadly expect the US central bank to hold rates steady on Wednesday in order to give policymakers more time to assess the health of the world’s largest economy. “We think
AI TREND: TSMC has been rapidly expanding capacity to meet a spike in demand for advanced packaging services, but still expects supplies to be tight for 18 months Arizona is in talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) about advanced chip packaging, state Governor Katie Hobbs said yesterday, which is crucial for the manufacturing of artificial intelligence (AI) chips. TSMC, which is building a US$40 billion chip factory in the US state, has not announced plans to build facilities for advanced chip packaging in the US. Advanced packaging processes stitch multiple chips together into a single device, lowering the added cost of more powerful computing. “Part of our efforts at building the semiconductor ecosystem is focusing on advanced packaging, so we have several things in the works around that
At a sprawling South Korean arms factory on Friday, a high-tech production line of robots and super-skilled workers were rapidly churning out weapons that could, eventually, play a role in Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion last year, the Hanwha Aerospace factory in the southern city of Changwon has expanded production capacity three times, workers told reporters, as South Korea ramps up arms exports while traditional behemoths like the US struggle with production shortages. Longstanding domestic policy bars Seoul from selling weapons into active conflicts, but even so it signed deals worth US$17.3 billion last year, including a US$12.7 billion agreement with NATO
RSS