Credit-Driven China Glut Threatens to Spark Bank Debt Crisis

gCaptain ^ | November 20, 2013 | Jun Luo, Jasmine Wang and Aipeng Soo

[artichokegrower]

In China’s “Shipping Valley,” where the Yangtze River empties into the sea north of Shanghai, the once-bustling home of the nation’s biggest private shipbuilder is deadly quiet on a recent morning.

Rows of dilapidated five-story dormitories in the city of Nantong, previously housing China Rongsheng Heavy Industries Group Holdings Ltd.’s 38,000 employees, were abandoned after the shipbuilder teetering on collapse cut almost 80 percent of its workers over the past two years. Most video arcades, restaurants and shops serving them have closed.

A $6.6 trillion credit binge during the past five years, encouraged by Beijing policy makers as stimulus to combat a global economic slowdown, now threatens to stoke a debt crisis. At stake are trillions of yuan in bank loans that companies producing everything from ships to steel to solar power are struggling to repay as the world’s second-largest economy heads for the weakest annual expansion since 1999.

Rongsheng, which is seeking a government bailout after accumulating 25 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) in unpaid loans as of June, including to Bank of China Ltd., is a casualty of over- investment gone bust. In Nantong, the only remaining market is selling past-its-shelf-life bread, woolly shoe pads and other dusty items at a discount as shopkeeper Qiu Aibing prepares to wind down before winter. There’s no sign of a single customer.

[artichokegrower]

So China is having a credit crisis. Wonder which borrower in the world will they look to for a cash source? Could be that all of that easy money utilized for quantitative easing maybe harder to come by. Or more expensive.

[rbg81]

Sometimes, I think the Gang from “Its Always Sunny in Philadephia” know more about economics than the actual economists. And that ain’t saying much.

[staytrue]

This is what happened when China’s version of QE ended.

Wait until the US version of QE ends.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Bring jobs back to America.

Now.

[mazda77]

That is the biggest “10-4” of the new millennium.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

This just in! World economic news: The rise of Red China to the world's number one Super Power scheduled for next Tuesday afternoon, about tea time, has been postponed indefinitely.

[fatez]

I have often said on FR before, managing China’s decline will be much harder than managing it’s rise. They have horrible issues with debt just as their baby bulge enters the retirement years with no real safety net. Wagging the dog on major steroids is coming soon in East Asia.

[VRW Conspirator]

They have horrible issues with debt just as their baby bulge enters the retirement years with no real safety net. Wagging the dog on major steroids is coming soon in East Asia.

I am with you. Every time I heard of how great China was doing, I always knew it was a bubble and more importantly based on the economics of other major players in the world.

[RoadGumby]

Turn back to God in America.

Now.