Hong Kong’s exposure to Evergrande “very minimal”, according to minister

(Reuters) – Hong Kong’s exposure to debt-strangled Chinese real estate developer, China Evergrande Group, is “very minimal,” at 0.05% or HK $ 14 billion (€ 1.5 billion approximately) bank assets, the region’s finance minister quoted the South China Morning Post on Sunday.

“It is very minimal and does not represent any systemic risk for us,” Paul Chan told the newspaper, adding that he came to this conclusion after a recent audit of the local banking sector’s exposure to the ailing group.

Evergrande is crumbling under a global debt estimated at more than 260 billion euros and its difficulties raise fears of a domino effect on the Chinese financial system, even internationally.

(Donny Kwok, French version Gilles Guillaume)