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Defaults by Chinese borrowers have surged to a record high since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, highlighting the depth of the country’s economic downturn and the obstacles to a full recovery.
A total of 8.54mn people, most of them between the ages of 18 and 59, are officially blacklisted by authorities after missing payments on everything from home mortgages to business loans, according to local courts.
That figure, equivalent to about 1 per cent of working-age Chinese adults, is up from 5.7mn defaulters in early 2020, as pandemic lockdowns and other restrictions hobbled economic growth and gutted household incomes.
The soaring number of defaulters will add to the difficulty of shoring up consumer confidence in China, the world’s second largest economy and…
