China's Country Garden Avoids Default

Struggling Chinese developer Country Garden has successfully made multi-million-dollar interest payments on two outstanding loans, narrowly avoiding what would have been its first default, as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Country Garden still faces ongoing challenges, including additional loan repayments due in the coming weeks. I Photo: Forest City

In August, the company announced its inability to make the payments, amounting to $22.5 million, and was granted a 30-day grace period. This grace period was set to expire either on Tuesday or Wednesday, but Country Garden managed to make the interest payments, as also reported by Bloomberg News.

Country Garden, one of China's largest property developers, had amassed debts estimated at 1.43 trillion yuan ($196 billion) by the end of 2022 and reported a loss of 48.9 billion yuan for the first half of the year.

On Saturday, the company reportedly received approval from creditors to extend the deadline for a crucial bond repayment worth 3.9 billion yuan, allowing it more time to regain financial stability, as reported by CNN.

Failure to make this repayment would have positioned the company as the largest Chinese real estate firm to default since Evergrande in 2021. However, Country Garden still faces ongoing challenges, including additional loan repayments due in the coming weeks, as revealed by Reuters.

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