China Evergrande Gets Soft Treatment in Chinese Media

Then, on Friday, central bank officials mentioned Evergrande by name for the first time. Zou Lan, the director of the financial markets department, said at a news conference that the risks posed by Evergrande were “controllable” and that the overall real estate market was healthy. He promised that local governments would ensure construction resumed.

“The problem of Evergrande Group is an isolated phenomenon in the real estate industry,” Mr. Zou said, in remarks widely covered by state media. (In fact, other Chinese developers have reported financial troubles.)

The central bank’s governor, Yi Gang, echoed those comments at a separate conference on Sunday. And on Monday, Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, downplayed the property market’s impact on China’s economic slowdown.

But if officials at Evergrande were hoping for similar reassurance, Mr. Zou offered none.

“In recent years, the company has been managed poorly, and was unable to operate prudently according to changing market conditions,” he said. “This has caused serious deterioration in its operating and financial indicators, and ultimately risks broke out.”

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting. Joy Dong contributed research.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/business/evergrande-media-china.html