〔Overnight Brief〕Pre-Sale Curbs and a 1pp SME Subsidy Bookend the K-Shaped H2 as Q2 GDP Slips to 4.3% and Debt Service Tops 25% of Budget: Fiscal Lever Under Test

0. Weekly Arc

The H2 broker consensus reframes the year around 'transformation and divergence': Q2 GDP growth slowed to 4.3% and H1 real GDP came in at +4.7% YoY — 0.6pp below 2025 — with supply strong and demand structurally weak ^[1][2]. Beijing is layering property de-risking on top of SME support even as the fiscal arithmetic tightens ^[3][4][5][6]. Net: a K-shaped call in which the new-economy leg must offset the property drag ^[1][2][7].

1. Policy Stream

• **[NEW] Property de-risking:** three departments raised commodity housing pre-sale thresholds, prioritizing existing-home sales on newly transferred land ^[4]. A separate new commercial-property loan regime classifies management across development, purchase and operation stages ^[3].
• **[NEW] SME support:** six major state-owned banks implemented an interest-subsidy new policy giving SME working-capital loans a 1 percentage point support ^[5]. The PBOC Chongqing branch deployed a 'four-dimensional' coordinated push on private-enterprise re-lending ^[8].
• **[ONGOING] H2 stance:** monetary policy 'appropriately accommodative, more forward-looking'; rate cuts and RRR cuts are flagged as live options inside the H2 outlook ^[1].
• **[NEW] Municipal:** Shanghai government Party Secretary Zhu Zhongming chaired a party group meeting urging stabilization of consumption, investment, trade and FDI around the 'Five Centers' mandate and a strong '15th Five-Year Plan' opening ^[9].

2. Growth and High-Frequency Read

• **[NEW] Q2 GDP 4.3%, H1 real +4.7% YoY** ^[1][2]. Supply strong, demand weak, with investment and consumption both soft in H1 ^[1]. Inner Mongolia's electricity consumption index rose 7.51% YoY, an activity gauge ^[10].
• **[NEW] High-frequency demand (as of July 22):** 30-major-city commodity housing transactions +4.48% WoW on a 7-day average, with Tier-2 +25.88%, Tier-3 +0.89%, Tier-1 −16.76%; second-hand transactions in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen +4.02%, +0.73%, +2.39% respectively; 100-city land area +12.80% WoW but land premium rate −6.01pp ^[7]. Film box-office revenue rose 73.0% WoW ^[7].
• **[NEW] Industrial production diverged:** national blast-furnace operating rate 82.71% (−1.11pp WoW), independent coking oven rate 73.48% (+0.11pp); polyester chain PX rate flat, PTA 55.29% (+2.41pp) ^[7].

3. Fiscal and Budget Pressure

• **[NEW] Huxiu commentary (single source / opinion):** debt service and interest payments now absorb over 25% of the central budget, up 10.8% YoY, with the assumed market rate at 3% — a 29-year high ^[6]. The author frames it as roughly one yuan of every four spent servicing legacy debt ^[6].
• **[ONGOING] Fiscal levers:** the H2 outlook keeps special-purpose bonds, special government bonds and new policy-backed finance tools in the toolkit, alongside debt-swap and budget reform ^[1]. Outer context from the outlook: major economies have begun rate hikes and global liquidity is tightening, raising the bar for domestic easing ^[1].

4. Tail Risks and Falsifiable Tests

• Two tracks are live simultaneously: property de-risking via pre-sale curbs and a classified commercial-loan regime against SME interest subsidies and re-lending ^[3][4][8][5]. The test is whether Tier-1 housing demand stabilizes — last week's −16.76% WoW print on Tier-1 commodity housing is the red flag ^[7].
• Source quality control: the >25% debt-service share and the 3% assumed market rate are a single-source opinion column, not a verified budget figure ^[6]; the high-frequency demand tape is dated to July 22 and will roll forward ^[7]. The 'token market demand explosive growth' and 2.45 million-PFLOPS smart-computing scale figures come from a wire roundup and should be read as policy signals, not as a private-capex series ^[11].