NPR. China is experiencing a case of the economic doldrums.

Last week consumer prices fell further

and that can be really toxic for an economy.

Exports are in the dumps. its stock markets been on the slide for years,

perhaps most worryingly its property sector is mired in this really nasty slump as well.

And with China's real estate developers drowning in debt,

one company takes a cake with debts worth around $300 billion,

Evergrand.

300 billion. Yeah, That debt load is roughly the size of Finland's entire annual economic output.

Yeah, and two weeks ago a court in Hong Kong ordered part of the Evergrand company to liquidate, in other words to sell off its

assets and close down. Figuring out how to deal with this gargantuan failed company and the real estate

market in general has been a question mark hanging over the Chinese authorities.

Some have even speculated whether Evergrand could lead to a series of cascading failures that could undermine the entire Chinese economy.

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Patty Hirsch.

And I'm Darien Woods and today on the show one of the biggest company collapses in recent times.

But is this liquidation a systemic threat to the economy of China and the world? Well we'll go through the court order just so you know how much to worry.

That's all after the break. This message comes from NPR sponsor SAP Concur.

Stuart McClain, CFO of Brother UK,

shares how SAP Concurs Audit and Expense Tool supports their work across multiple offices.

Across Europe we have a presence in 17 countries which obviously involves

17 different tax regulations, 17 different fiscal authorities,

and this makes life complicated for us.

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