BlueScope Steel warns a ‘large volume of steel’ is leaving China and flooding markets in Australia and overseas

A prolonged downturn in China’s property market will have significant flow-on effects for the Australian government’s finances and the local steel industry, economists have warned. The Asian superpower’s real estate sector was seen as a pillar of economic growth until 2020 when China instituted some of the world’s harshest and longest COVID-19 lockdown measures. It was around that time its president, Xi Jinping, introduced tough new rules to crack down on the nation’s debt-fulled property bubble, which led to the financial collapse of Evergrande, Country Garden and other major property developers. Beijing is quietly heading into economic oblivion Photo shows…