China’s economic growth is still very strong despite Evergrande crisis – Standard Chartered

The Chinese economy remains on a solid footing, as the troubled Evergrande crisis is just in one of its sectors, Reuters reports, citing comments from Standard Chartered’s Chief Financial officer Andy Halford at a banking conference on Thursday.

Key quotes

"Even if one sector of the Chinese economy is a little under the cosh at the moment, the generality of the growth in the Chinese economy is still very strong when compared with most other parts of the world, and as we look forward it does not dent our enthusiasm for the country" 

No direct exposure to Evergrande and "negligible" indirect exposure

The bank has around $6 billion of exposure to real estate in Hong Kong, $1.25 billion in China out of a global real estate portfolio of some $19 billion.

"We need to be careful that we don't overreact, in this instance we don't have any significant exposure, the overall sectoral exposure is very modest and we're much, much less concerned than the initial market reaction.”