‘There’s No Money Right Now’: China’s Building Boom Runs Into a Great Wall of Debt
A building splurge in this impoverished pocket of rural China ended in half-finished projects and a trail of angry investors from some of the country’s wealthiest areas.On a recent winter workday, investors and representatives from private fund companies in Shanghai and elsewhere descended on Sandu, a county in the deep south where tens of thousands of locals live on less than a dollar a day. After taxi rides from the high-speed rail station that took them past incomplete buildings and a gigantic golden statue of a man on horseback, they sat in government offices, demanding repayment.
- The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) came in at 49.9 for February.
- A reading below 50 signals contraction, while a reading above that level indicates expansion.
A private survey on China’s manufacturing sector showed Friday that factory activity shrank for a third straight month in February.
The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) came in at 49.9 for February — higher than January’s reading of 48.3, and better than the 48.5 that economists polled by Reuters had forecast.
However, it showed that manufacturing activity in February remained around contractionary levels not seen since early 2016. A reading below 50 signals contraction, while a reading above that level indicates expansion.