The Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions and Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis co-organized a closed-door roundtable on the extent, causes, and implications of China’s current property sector slowdown. The roundtable focused on China’s property sector, which has been a major engine of economic growth in China for over three decades. Through its large impact on local government revenues, the financial sector, household wealth, and employment, the property sector plays an outsized role in China’s economy – far more than in most other countries. 

By 2021, however, there were signs that China’s property sector may be reaching a peak, and even beginning to contract, potentially signifying wider distress in the economy. The property sector exemplifies an investment-driven growth model that China has pursued for the past few decades, and the policy responses to the current property downturn also has implications for how and whether China can transition toward an alternative, high-quality growth model less reliant on the property sector.  

The summary report of the roundtable, conducted under the Chatham House Rule, details the in-depth discussion that centered on four key questions:

1. How sharp and sustained will the slowdown in China’s property sector be?
2. What are the most important determinants of this slowdown: government policy or structural factors? 
3. What are the implications of China’s property slowdown for other areas of China’s economy? 

4. What can China do to offset risks and negative consequences associated with the property slowdown?

    

In partnership with Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis