Developers grapple with economic slowdown

Zhengzhou's property market exploded in 2016, spurred on by Chinese government efforts to boost home ownership and consumer spending in interior provinces like Henan. While the resulting price surges were a new source of wealth for many in the city, they also excluded people. After two years of breakneck growth, property markets in provincial cities like Zhengzhou finally reached a turning point in late 2018. That has presented a policy challenge for the Chinese government, which has been attempting to spread wealth beyond the country's rich coastal regions to the interior. It also illustrates how policymakers have struggled to grapple with a property market, the world's largest, that is crucial for growth yet prone to bubbles springing up in unlikely places - including the cities of Henan province.