Evergrande first-half net loss narrows to $4.5b

HONG KONG, Aug 28 (Reuters): China Evergrande Group, the world's most-indebted property developer, on Sunday reported a narrower net loss for the first half of the year, thanks to a rise in revenue.

Evergrande said its January-June loss was 33 billion yuan ($4.53 billion) versus a 66.4 billion yuan loss in the same period a year earlier.

The developer is at the centre of a crisis in China's property sector that since late 2021 has seen a string of debt defaults, unfinished homes and unpaid suppliers, shattering consumer confidence in the world's second-largest economy.

This month, missed US dollar coupon payments by China's largest private developer, Country Garden, fanned concern of contagion in an economy already weakened by tepid domestic and foreign demand, faltering factory activity and rising unemployment.

In a filing on Sunday, Evergrande said first-half revenue rose 44 per cent from a year earlier to 128.2 billion yuan, as it "actively planned for the resumption of sales and successfully seized the short boom of the property market that emerged at the beginning of the year". Cash fell by 6.3 per cent to 13.4 billion yuan.