China’s State-Owned Firms Are Sitting Out the Property Rescue

Government hopes for a market solution have been dashed

The property-market slowdown has hit state-owned developers, though not as hard as their private-sector counterparts. Photo: str/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

When China’s private real-estate developers started sliding into distress more than a year ago, the government encouraged state-owned property companies to step in and take over their ailing peers’ projects and assets.

That call has gone largely unheeded—a big reason why the country’s housing market remains in the doldrums.

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