China's property sector, once the pillar of the economy, has slumped since 2021 when real estate giant China Evergrande Group defaulted on its debt obligations following a clampdown on new borrowing.

Even China’s population of 1.4 billion would not be enough to fill all the empty apartments littered across the country, a former official said on Saturday, in a rare public critique of the country’s crisis-hit property market.

China’s property sector, once the pillar of the economy, has slumped since 2021 when real estate giant China Evergrande Group (3333.HK) defaulted on its debt obligations following a clampdown on new borrowing.

Big-name developers such as Country Garden Holdings (2007.HK) continue to teeter close to default even to this day, keeping home-buyer sentiment depressed.

As of the end of August, the combined floor area of unsold homes stood at 648 million square metres (7 billion square feet), the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show.

That would be equal to 7.2 million homes, according to Reuters calculations, based on the average home size of 90 square metres.

    • rbesfe@lemmy.caEnglish
      105·
      1 year ago

      Alright I’ll bite, what makes the world’s declared democracies actually undemocratic in your mind?

      • Serdan@lemm.eeEnglish
        197·
        1 year ago

        Billionaires directly or indirectly buying elections, politicians, drafting policies, funding propaganda, regulatory capture, etc.

        • rbesfe@lemmy.caEnglish
          84·
          1 year ago

          The democratic world doesn’t start and end with America

          • Serdan@lemm.eeEnglish
            9·
            1 year ago

            I live in Denmark. All liberal democracies are subject to the whims of billionaires.

            Edit: oh wait, you’re Canadian. That’s fucking hilarious.

    • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      21·
      1 year ago

      Its a democracy when you’re in the global north, it’s autocracy when you’re in the global south.

    • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
      411·
      1 year ago

      I love how you’re getting downvoted, likely by people who feel a sense of enlightenment in that they can identify Chinese propaganda that has been pointed out to them as such but have no clue about propaganda originating from their own country or from a country theirs is allied with.

          • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            According to the Danes, definitely.

            Ironically, founded to “stop the encroachment by the Germans” the Kalmar union first had a Pommeranian King, and then a Saxon one.