‘Not pretty’: Rising mortgage rates slam the gate shut on hopeful homebuyers

Reuters

In ‘miracle’ city Shenzhen, fears for China’s economic future

David Fong made his way from a poor village in central China to the southern boomtown of Shenzhen as a young man in 1997. “I hope we make it through the year,” said Fong, surrounded by talking bears, machine parts and his company’s catalogues in his top-floor office overlooking gleaming towers in an area of Shenzhen once filled with sprawling factories. Fong’s story of rags to riches, now threatened by a wider slowdown worsened by the coronavirus, mirrors that of his adopted city.