China Evergrande offers 30% discount to boost property sales

[NEW YORK] China Evergrande Group kicked off a nationwide sales promotion with a 30 per cent discount on all real estate properties as the developer tries to boost sales and meet its target of cutting debt by half.

The promotion on residential real estate began on Monday and will last until Oct 8, which marks the end of China's week-long national holiday, according to a statement from the property developer. While Evergrande routinely offers discounts during holidays when Chinese tend to shop for apartments, the promotion has come earlier this year and with a deeper price cut.

Last week, Evergrande vowed to increase sales as part of its efforts to meet an aggressive deleveraging target - cutting borrowings by about 150 billion yuan (S$29.96 billion) each year from 2020 to 2022, or about half its current debt load.

So far it's fallen short of the pledge. Total debt rose 4 per cent to 835 billion yuan as at June 30, compared with 800 billion yuan at the end of 2019, according to an Aug 31 earnings report from the Shenzhen-based company.

BLOOMBERG