Type of krycek on the headlines here on al jazeera, the former u. S. President donald trump says his home has been searched by the f b i. Trump said the raid was not necessary as he had been corporate with relevant Government Agencies. My comment has more one uses coming to us from a Statement Issued by a former president , trump, or weve got no confirmation from the f b i. Or indeed, any comment from the Justice Department on this alleged grade. President trump has released a statement on his social media platform saying, my beautiful home morrow largo in palm beach. Florida is currently under siege re did an occupied by a large group of if b, i agency says, after working and cooperating with the relevant Government Agencies this announce rate at my home was not necessary or appropriate voting as on the way in kenyas president ial election. Its expected to be a close race between former Prime Minister reino dinger and the Current Deputy president william router voters are also causing their ballot and elections for parliament, county governors, and assemblies. The un special coordinator for the middle east has warned the Security Council that the sci fi and garza between israel and the Palestinian Islamic jihad group is fragile tor winslow said any resumption of hostilities would be devastating and futile had been held for some of the 45 People Killed during 3 days of his ready strikes on garza, 16 children were among the dead. Russia says its ready to facilitate a visit for monitors from the International AtomicEnergy Agency to tool these apparitions pop lot. Both ukraine and russia have blamed each other for shelling the facility last week. Its europes biggest atomic power complex. Thailands military has held a live fire artillery drill, simulating a defense of the self governing island. It follows days of Chinese Military exercises in the air and sea around taiwan. China launched the drills in response to u. S. House beacon nancy pelosi visit to type a last week. And the European Union has table. The final text us talks over revising the 2015 iran nuclear dealer wrap up in vienna. United states says its ready to quickly conclude a deal, but iran once a comprehensive review. Those are the headlines that hes continues here now to sierra after counting the cost sent you that selection latha ah bolivia like everywhere, connectivity this paramount. And yet for infrastructure and dependence on Foreign Corporations means to many remain offline. Now a politician and tech activists are building a home grown solution. Goodnight hunted views that secure the nations technological sovereignty. Ah, rebel geeks, the citizens network. Oh no, just a you ah, ah, i hello, i am sammys a than this is counting the cost on al jazeera, your weekly look at the world of business and economics. This week, running out of patience, chinese home buyers are halting payments on unfinished projects. Well, the property sector crumble and how would that impact the economy . Also this way, columbia has a new president and he wants to reset relations with neighboring venezuela. What would that mean for bilateral trade and russia intends to pull out of the International Space station off the 2024 . But can moscow afford its own project . What does that mean to base exploration . Ah, now real estate has been one of the biggest drivers of Economic Growth in china. I counting for one 3rd of the countries, 18 trillion us dollar g, d p. But its not just the broad economy that relies on it. Households due to up to 70 percent of their wealth is tied up in the sector. But strict corona virus restrictions and that, that crisis among developers have slowed down the Property Market and halted construction on thousands of projects. Home buyers now in short, frustrated, theyre refusing to pay the mortgage on properties. Theyve bought. The boy called involved more than 300. 00 housing projects across more than 90 cities. It puts up to 350000000000. 00 of payments at risk. More than 85 percent of chinese houses are sold through pre sale in which buyers have to start repaying their loans long before construction is complete. Declining sales, adding to the pressure on the Property Market, chinas top 100 developers sold their sales. Hobbs in the 1st 6 months of this year. Sales plunged almost 40 percent in july from the same period last year to the equivalent of more than 77000000000. 00. They went down 28. 6 percent from june, ending a 2 month recovery and month to month sales growth. S and p Global Rating agency expect chinas property sales to drop by around 30 percent this year. That would be worse than in the 2008 financial crisis. The Chinese Government is stepping into rescue the real estate sector efforts include a grace period of mortgage payments and the central bank back fun to lend Financial Support to developers. Businesses struggled to obtain financing and the last 2 years is badging cracked down on their line from debt. Well, joining us from singapore is rajiv biswas. He is the asia pacific chief economist, that s and p Global Market intelligence. Thanks for coming rodriguez. First of all, lets start with the courts. How serious are the mortgage boy called, how serious the thrive holiday . Well i, i think their focus very much on Property Developers who have been facing difficulties and have delayed their projects. So it says certain subsection of total borrowers who have arranged contracts with Property Developers that are facing difficult circumstances. And often thats manifested in delays to projects. So it is relatively small sub sector of the total number of borrowers. Whats going wrong for developers if home buyers paying up front in advance of the completion of projects . I think one of the difficulties that has faced the industries, theres always been a subset of Property Developers that of that highly leverage. So even in normal times, you do have some Property Developers in many countries around the world that face financial distress and effects the borrowers. But in this particular case, chinas regulatory authorities back in 2020, wanted to reduce macroeconomic vulnerability to high leverage and the real estate state sector. They were worried that could create Financial Stress in the system. And so to reduce that high leverage back in 2020, they introduced what was called 3 red logins. And that policy put limits on debt from Property Developers in relation to a number of metrics that were then looked very closely in terms of their companys cash flows, their total assets and also their capital levels. So after the introduction of those new regular sri policies that did put more constraints on real estate developers. And so for those who are highly leverage right, difficulties with their Balance Sheets that created for Financial Stress. So i think some of the problems are, were seeing are related to those efforts by the chinese regulatory authorities right now. In addition to red lines, theyre now trying to put together a fund to try and help some of these over leveraged firms is not enough. Theyre trying to walk, you know, balance between continuing to maintain their efforts to reduce leverage, which is an important creek. You know, my priority over the medium term and set out as a high priority not only for real estate, but also more broadly for the corporate sector. Back in 2020 and also of course to try to manage the risk. Now as occurring with some developers, and thats been evident, even in the 2nd half of last year. Its the combination of those sort of 2 sides of the equation where they dont want to just, you know, provide huge amounts of stimulus and let problems again resurface. But on the other hand, they also dont want to create a crisis. So theyre trying to manage the situation, particularly with the borrowers and mine, so the projects can be completed. And so i think that is the intent there is to ensure that theyre doing the best they can to ensure the projects are somehow completed even through restructure arrangements. Where other developers may have to play a role and also local authorities. I was about the issue of mortgage defaults. Right. What does that mean for banks . Well again, because when we talk about the amount of loans at risk because of this situation, its a relatively small share of the total bank lending for the Property Market. So its not well banks then. Well, its always a cern for banks. When you see ronnie seeing distress in certain segments of their loan books and in particular, its not only about the borrowers facing risk, but its very much about the developers as well. So it depends on the individual banks and how much exposure that they have to particular property developer. I think thats certainly an area of concern. But if we look at the total loan book of the Banking System, the total number of mortgages that are at risk would be relatively small. And the big banks and china are vast. I mean, there, amongst the biggest banks in the world. So, you know, they have very large asset bases and they have the ability to deal with a certain amount of distress. So at the moment in the total picture of the overall Banking System in china, this does seem like a relatively small share of the total loans. However, one point to bear in mind is that if the price of Property Market so show significant declines, that does created different equation as in any other country. If you have full and prices in the Property Market, that increases potential distress. But at the moment, thats not the situation thats facing china. Theres modern declines and prices. Now deal everything that you said, and im wondering whats the bottom line here . What does it mean for those concerns, which we have heard about the possibility, the real estate crisis could drag down the entire economy which is already slang. Those then those concerns then overblown. So i think when we look at the 2nd half of this year and also into the early part of next year, the outlook for china certainly does face headwind. Not only from the pandemic restrictions and the 0 current policy, but also some headwinds. Now from the property mar, Residential Construction is clearly slowing down quite significantly. All the metrics are showing not. And then also with the us and you slowing down export outlook. Its also going to be slowing down in the 2nd half as well. All right, thanks so much for sharing your analysis on that. Reggies. Thank you very much. Columbia and venezuela have been political foes for years of a range of issues including an increase in the number of venezuela migrants crossing the country. Shad border but baba thought has a new left wing president andys promising to many times with correct us now because of petra was also announced plans to resume trade and reopen the often lawless border between the 2 nations. Alexander on pierre reports from the border city of kuta, those still catalina morris, co owner of a bio degradable detergent company, and cooper proudly shows off her cleaning products. But when shes missing these days, our clients, economic hardships meant she had to let go of 21 of her 23 employees. She says only the resumption of trade with venezuela will save her philippines. Okay. It is extreme importance if not vital for us. I think this could offer us a lifeline. We could reach markets and clients again. Its a big opportunity and we need to take advantage of it. The border between colombian, venezuela has been closed to all but pedestrian since 2015. The neighbors severed relations. 3 years ago now left his president who stumbled it through his promising to normalize size and get goods moving again. Annual trade was worth more than 7000000000. 00 us dollars back in 2008. Last year it was just a 155000000 business leaders. Hope that will change quickly or we can regain the 120000 jobs. We lost in a short time in just a year. And we think this is an historic opportunity for the gist takes geography costs and agriculture. We could be the venezuelan pantry for food and raw materials. I mean, weve been victims of political fight last been bitter divisions among political foes, the left, the regional tatters. This is a bridge of deep as a state of the art overpass with 3 lanes in each direction, warehouses, offices, and everything thats needed to facilitate trade between the 2 countries. It was completed back in 2016 at a cost of 36000000. 00, but it has yet to enter into service. Years of closure of also led to an increase in crime venezuela. Businesses of resorted to buying colombian goods, smuggled 3 legal crossings, raising costs and empowering criminal gangs. A sound like the 3 agents, and that was man show as the few supply stuck in our warehouse waiting to cross legally. She says, restoring trade will take time as rules need to be reestablished by federal while england, it will have to be very gradual because we need to regain confidence before 2019 we had between 12 and 15, licensed public warehouses for International Commerce under duty free zone today we have none 0. But one thing everyone here agrees is that reopening the border is the 1st step to providing opportunities for both sides. Allison, their m p a t t l jersey coker right. Joining us from georgia in the u. A. E is hire a local candidate, the dean of the college of communication at the university of georgia and latin america. Analysts good to have you with us. So hire to reopening the border. Of course, thats good news for people on both sides. But how easy is it going to be to get around some of the challenges to try . Im talking procedural challenges and Security Issues and so on. Its going to be a big challenge for both sides, for one on the one hand, of course, as well as economy. Although i somehow recover a bit, its still still in 3 for most people, hardly make ends meet. And the company, the company has a really hard time getting hard currency to pay off on the other side. Hello. Yeah, im sure, with security, a lot of the guerrilla groups at the d, c, and d, e l. N. Operate widely on the borders in between columbia and, and its both in the north through the heat our region as well as in the south in cuckoo. And so the guarantees that each government can, you will be limited to their own ability to act on those very structural issues, which in both cases have been very difficult to deal with. How much do you think opening the border will be worth in terms of an increase in trade value . Well, i cant really put out a number. Busy but i can tell you that in the early 90 ninetys, when the president of the bed is made up, big for to create a synergy with between both countries. Beat includes went broke from half a 1000000000. 00 a year to add nearly 5000000000. 00 a year. So, you know, would that happen again . Well, of course, not necessarily because in that time been, its, well, it was a robust economy even though have a problem. We had lots of things to act along by 1st, but there were, there were tons of you can ben, its important to fall of the mark i will lake to both import and export programs for the north region in columbia. All those conditions are no longer there. At the moment, im going to mention this, let me pick up an appointment that you mentioned. Then off this though, ill venezuelan goods companies. Are they able to compete with the colombian counterparts or is an opening of the board . Are going to lead to something of a routing of some faxes in the venezuelan economy. No, no, its just the companies are not going to be able to compete in the moment the, the level, bureaucratic control, the central golf and then the obstacles, the uncertainty which is probably best the worst part makes it very difficult for companies to administer even to produce to satisfy the demand in been as well, it felt lead loan to export. Now some companies have been well on our exports, like a pump beta rum and some very control industry, the oil industry. But thats it. You know, we dont really have lost to export at the moment. One thing, while columbia has developed a very diverse and Strong Industrial cap ability, we can overlook to off the important question of how would reopening and reactivating the border. Was that mean for the migrant crisis, for the movement of people be open on the board . It doesnt mean a free pass for my ad. Theres nothing in the leasing agreement that says that. Now ben is one of the can, can, can move without the proper documents. And the other thing is, and the post called the era columbia, theres a huge problem with on employment. So now the minutes are throwing competing with columbia. And so for specific jobs in certain areas and the informal economy, which is already big enough in columbia, it doesnt make it that welcome, you know, that 6 receptive tube. And so that might also be economy. I dont think so. I dont think that we should expect the open in the bottom is that all the, all the immigrants will go through how long. Remember the portion of the initial and do not stopping, but they both belong to the value in, in panama. And theyre looking at walking or hiking all the way to the united states, which is the final destination with many of that. So i dont think that we should expect necessarily the bidding of the border will make it easier for the, for the migrate or more secure. What it can allow us in that depends on be the colombian government, on their, our pedals is that they are they relapse the measures. So when its, when am i can vote in or in a legal way what . And i think thats, thats the next step to take. Now, ive been a great chat. Thanks so much. Hiero. Thank you. The