China’s troubled building giant Evergrande is offering special discounts on apartments across the country during the upcoming Labour Day Golden Week in May.
The developer, which has $300 billion in liabilities, has been struggling to resume construction in some areas, but has now set a goal of 1 billion yuan ($152 million) worth of sales during the holiday period at the start of May. It claims to have resumed work on 95% of its projects.
Evergrande is offering special discounts on 10,000 apartments across 413 projects to push sales in the holiday period, its Pearl River Delta business unit said in a WeChat post last week, without elaborating.
In 2021, Evergrande recorded contracted sales of 443 billion yuan, down 39% from the previous year. It did not reveal a 2022 sales target and has stopped disclosing monthly sales since September.
The holiday sales target is to be divided across 28 district units, The Paper online media said on Wednesday, with Evergrande’s unit in the southwestern province of Sichuan taking most of the burden, at 128 million yuan.
The target for April 25 to May 4 was first reported by The Paper, and overlaps with the Golden Week holiday for Labour Day, which starts on Saturday. Golden Week is also the term for the weeklong holiday that begins with National Day on October 1.
The developer, known for aggressive promotions timed to coincide with both Golden Week holidays, offered a 30% discount on properties in September 2020, before its debt crisis intensified.
It targeted sales of 100 billion yuan each in September and October that year, garnering 182 billion for the two months, according to a filing.
- Reuters, with additional editing by George Russell.
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