MNI China Press Digest Aug 13: Subsidy, Evergrande, Logistics

Highlights from Chinese press reports on Wednesday:

• Consumers can receive an interest subsidy of 1% on loans for single purchases of no more than CNY50,000 for goods including vehicles and home furnishing, Yicai.com reported citing a statement by the Ministry of Finance and other departments. Businesses in eight consumer service sectors including catering and tourism can also enjoy such subsidies on loans up to CNY1 million for a single entity, which is expected to leverage a larger scale of funds to boost consumption compared to direct fiscal subsidies that have a limited multiplier effect, the newspaper said citing analysts.
• China Evergrande, the world's most heavily indebted real estate developer, will delist from Hong Kong's stock exchange on Aug 25, after being suspended from trading for 18 months, cls.cn reported. Evergrande's delisting is in line with market expectation and signals an acceleration of industry risks, analysts said. As of November 2023, the group’s unpaid maturing debts was CNY316 billion, in addition to CNY205 billion in overdue commercial bills, the financial publisher said.
• China's e-commerce logistics index was 112.0 points in July, up 0.2 from June, setting a new high for the year, Securities Daily reported citing data by China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing. The sub-index of total business volume rose by 0.1 point to 130.9 to hit a new high this year, mainly driven by various national consumer subsidies and booming e-commerce consumption in rural areas, the newspaper said.