5 days ago
China's Rare Lending Slump Feeds Worry on Slower Economic Growth
China's first contraction in outstanding loans since 2005 has crystallized worries about a deepening downturn for the world's second-largest economy.
Instead of putting money to work, households and companies are paying down their debt as they take a more dim view of their prospects, threatening a self-fulfilling cycle of economic underperformance. The longest deflation streak since at least the 1990s is also suppressing demand for borrowing, contributing last month to a 430 billion-yuan ($60 billion) decline in loans to the real economy — the most on record going back to 2002.
