China’s Evergrande was supposed to scale back its towering debt pile this year, leading the country’s property sector in a much needed deleveraging. But a surge in US dollar borrowing has investors worried the burden will actually grow.

Local developers have doubled their US dollar bond issuance to $32bn since the start of the year, according to data from Dealogic, as they seek to refinance higher-cost and shorter-term debt.

Some investors have welcomed the wave of issuance as a sign the companies are focused on paying down more costly bonds onshore, where repayment pressure has mounted with Rmb267bn ($39.7bn) still to mature this year. Yet as China’s property market cools, there is a growing risk the sector will end up with unmanageable debt.