China Center Data Flash: Tight credit is suffocating real estate

Outstanding credit growth slowed to 15.9 percent year over year in April, the lowest point since December 2005. We have been highlighting how credit-dependent China’s economy has become over the past several years, but this point can’t be stressed enough—China’s economic growth will not stabilize if credit growth continues to slow. In many respects, the continued across-the-board economic weakness in the April data flows from the ongoing tightening of credit conditions and (paradoxically) the more recent falloff in credit demand.