The company logo of Chinese developer Country Garden is pictured at the Shanghai Country Garden Center in Shanghai, China August 9, 2023. Smaller Chinese cities, whose revenues have already been deteriorating, could have a glut of unfinished homes, a social problem Beijing is trying to avoid. But as China's economy started slowing during and after its COVID-19 lockdowns, property sales in those areas has plummeted along with values of the homes themselves. Country Garden's sales in 2020 were 570.7 billion yuan ($78.22 billion), but that slipped to 357.5 billion yuan in 2022. Country Garden has nearly 1 million homes to complete, according to estimates from Japanese investment bank Nomura.

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Persons: Aly, HONG KONG, Oscar Choi, Yang Huiyan, Lu Ting, Nomura, Gerwin Bell, Clare Jim, Liangping Gao, Matt Tracy, Davide Barbuscia, Christian Schmollinger Organizations: Shanghai Country Garden, REUTERS, Country, HK, National Bureau, Statistics, Partners Capital, China Evergrande, Oxford Economics, Nomura, Thomson Locations: Shanghai, China, HONG, Beijing, Dezhou, Hong Kong, Asia, Washington, New York