How long can China build empty apartments?

Friday 30 November 2018

Theoretically forever given it owns its own banks:

The real problem is, it can’t keeping doing it and keep lifting living standards. There are already 50-60m empty apartments, enough to house all future urbanisation:

All of that wasted capital has a cost. It destroys productivity and income growth stalls. We are already there:

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.