China property crash batters a niche pocket of finance

Buildings under construction at a China Vanke Co. development in Beijing, China, on Thursday, July 11, 2024. China Vanke warned that losses grew substantially in the second quarter, with the big homebuilder saying that investment in some projects "has been over-optimistic."Bloomberg

SINGAPORE: China’s property downturn is weighing on yet another corner of financial markets: ESG-labelled securitised debt.

Chinese developers are issuing far fewer securities tied to climate or social objectives, resulting in only US$2.8bil being raised in Asia Pacific in the first half, data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence show. That’s an 86% drop from a year earlier, and bucks a trend in both the United States and the Europe, the Middle East and Africa region, which saw increases.