In the nation’s capital, the Beijing municipal government said that unmarried individuals would now be allowed to purchase only one residence. The city also increased the minimum down payment for buyers of a second home and imposed a 20 percent capital gains tax on owners’ selling a residence.

In Shanghai, an identical capital gains tax was announced and took immediate effect, and city officials pledged to install and enforce other measures aimed at stabilizing housing prices. The stiffer capital gains taxes take the place of a 1 percent to 2 percent transaction tax that was previously assessed on the final price of the property being sold.

The announcements came weeks after China’s State Council, or cabinet, said the government would take stronger action to ensure that property prices do not continue to soar, fueling what many analysts believe is a real estate bubble that could seriously damage the economy and exacerbate social tensions between the rich and the poor.

Esther Fung and Richard Silk reported that anxious buyers and sellers filed into property sale centers in Beijing and Shanghai on Monday to seek answers about the new regulations:

Homeowners and sales agents on Monday quizzed local officials about the details and how they might hurt sales. “I hope the seller doesn’t go back on his word,” said one home buyer, who gave her surname as Hong, at a transaction office in Shanghai, adding, “I’m not sure if the tax needs to be paid.”

At a transaction office in Beijing’s Chaoyang district people jostled their way to the front of a line for information on the new rules. Many feared sellers would pass the 20% levy straight on to them.

“It’s just this tax,” said a woman holding a baby. She gave her English name, Katie, and said she was hoping to buy a first home with her husband. “We’re so worried about this tax.” The official at the end of the line brusquely referred all questions on the issue to the tax office on the next block.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing, property market, real estate bubble, Shanghai
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

“They never register the houses in their own names and they use a string of agents to do the deals,” said Mr Fu. He said one company had bribed an official by buying him a property at the Mountain Water International Complex. “The property was put in the name of the official’s relative. After six months, it was sold for two million yuan (£200,000), around the same amount it cost. Then the official could cash out.

[…] Marco Pearman-Parish at Corporation China, a company in Beijing that helps clients find properties abroad, said there had been a strong rise in clients looking for homes in the Cayman Islands.

“In Beijing, half our clients are government officials,” he said. “Nine out of ten claim to be businessmen, but it emerges over the course of the deal that they have government jobs. What they are looking for is resident permits abroad so that if anything happens they can escape easily.”

Neither the anti-corruption speeches nor the escape artistry began with Xi’s appointment in November. According to the Commission report, Moore writes, as much as U.S. $1 trillion was smuggled out of China last year—though this figure is disputed—while 714 officials made successful getaways during the October National Day holidays alone.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anti-corruption, Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, corrupt officials, corruption, naked officials, property market, real estate, smuggling, Xi Jinping
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The Taiwan chapter of the Federation of Business and Professional Women, headed by former vice president Annette Lu, said the move reflected fear of angering China, which sees the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader as a separatist.

“We are angry as the government is obviously worried about China’s reaction. It’s ridiculous that Taiwan has to listen to China and seek its approval before doing anything,” said a spokeswoman for Lu.

[…] Taiwan’s foreign ministry confirmed that they would not allow the visit, but denied China had anything to do with the decision.

“It’s just not a good time,” foreign ministry spokesman Steve Hsia told AFP, declining to elaborate.

A planned visit in 2008 was blocked on similarly vague grounds, though another the following year was allowed to proceed after much deliberation. From Shih Hsiu-chuan at Taipei Times:

“When will it be a proper time for the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan? The timing was not right in 2009 [sic] and the timing is not right now. Do we have to wait until the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is out of power? Is Taiwan still a country that values democracy, human rights and freedom?” Tsai [Huang-liang, a DPP legislator] asked.

The Dalai Lama was able to visit Taiwan, at the invitation of seven DPP mayors and commissioners, one month after Typhoon Morakot devastated southern parts of the country in August 2009, killing about 700 people and causing widespread damage.

Ma called an emergency meeting at the National Security Council to deliberate the case. The meeting lasted five hours before he approved the visit.

Beijing responded by cancelling a number of joint events, despite Taipei’s efforts to explain itself. Heightened tensions amid a long series of self-immolation protests—for which Beijing has blamed the Dalai Lama himself—can only have increased the risk of hurt feelings this time.

China routinely and vigorously protests international visits by the Dalai Lama: embassy officials in London threatened to boycott a pre-Olympic training camp this summer, for example, over a scheduled appearance at a private business conference nearby. Taiwan is not alone in yielding to the pressure. South Africa refused the Dalai Lama a visa to attend Desmond Tutu’s birthday celebration last year, while in June the Italian city of Milan cancelled plans to award him honorary citizenship. On the other hand, Beijing’s protests can add fuel to domestic political demands that leaders do not ”placate Chinese tyrants”.

Closer ties to China have been a hallmark of Kuomintang president Ma Ying-jeou’s administration, but the Economist reported last week that they have somewhat backfired, driving property prices up as Ma’s approval ratings have tumbled:

Ordinary people do not find their livelihoods improving. Salaries have stagnated for a decade. The most visible impact of more open ties with China, which include a free-trade agreement, has been property speculation in anticipation of a flood of mainland money. Housing in former working-class areas on the edge of Taipei, the capital, now costs up to 40 times the average annual wage of $15,400. The number of families below the poverty line has leapt. Labour activists have taken to pelting the presidential office with eggs.

The newspaper referred to Ma as “an ineffectual bumbler”. In response, a KMT legislator told the South China Morning Post that “I feel bad and also sad some foreign media would launch such a criticism against our national leader, but there are some facts in the magazine’s report that President Ma must reflect upon.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dalai Lama, DPP, KMT, London, London Olympics, Ma Ying-jeou, Milan, property market, South Africa, Taiwan, The Economist, typhoons
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Slower economic growth took a toll on many of China’s 100 biggest fortunes, with 45 of them slipping from last year’s FORBES ASIA count and the overall roster’s total dipping 7% to $220 billion. But that still beats the 20% drop in the Shanghai Stock Exchange index since our 2011 list.

Beverage producer Zong Qinghou, who topped our list in 2010, returns to the No. 1 spot as his net worth hit $10 billion. Others who faced a demanding consumer sector did not fare as well. Suning Appliance Chairman Zhang Jindong was down $2.4 billion (see story, p. 41) even as he opened up a commanding market lead over longtime rival Wong Kwong Yu of Gome, who suffered a $2 billion drop and still sits in jail for financial crimes. Qiu Guanghe of the fashion chain Semir shed $2.8 billion and fell to 37th. Several property tycoons suffered (see p. 36), and last year’s list leader, Liang Wengen, is off $3.4 billion as demand slows for the building equipment produced by Sany Group, which he chairs. He’s now No. 6.

Methodology: This list was compiled using shareholding and financial information obtained from the families and individuals, stock exchanges, analysts and China’s regulatory agencies. The ranking lists family fortunes, including those shared among extended families. Public fortunes were calculated based on stock prices and exchange rates as of Sept. 21. Private companies were valued based on similar companies that are publicly traded.

According to Xinhua, while some individuals were dropped from the list, others have seen jumps in their wealth:

Wang Jianlin, chairman and president of Dalian Wanda Group Co Ltd, was the fastest riser in the past year, seeing his wealth jump from 25.6 billion yuan to 50.4 billion yuan, making up the top three with Zong and Robin Li from China’s search engine company Baidu.

Russell Flannery, a senior editor at Forbes and chief of its Shanghai Bureau, said: “Wang outperformed with his greatest success entering the entertainment industry with the announcement of a $2.6 billion acquisition of US cinema chain AMC Entertainment.”

“All those ups and downs of rich people in China in different industries lead to the conclusion that the slowdown of China’s economy has brought uncertainty to local private enterprises,” said Zhou Jiangong, chief editor of Forbes Chinese edition.

On the Forbes list, 16 are property billionaires. Despite making it onto the list, another Forbes article reports, eight of these property billionaires have seen a decrease in their fortunes in the past year:

With notable exceptions like Wang Jianlin, big property developers in China have had a rough year as the government has moved to curb speculation.

Hui Ka Yan, Chairman of Evergrande Real Estate Group, took the biggest hit among the property billionaires. His estimated net worth has shrunk 21% to $4.9 billion in 2012, putting him at No. 8 on the list. The company’s profit, excluding the revaluation of investment properties, also declined 21% to $598 million in the first half of 2012, compared with an increase of 148% a year earlier, as home prices were hit the most in inland cities where the company focused its expansion last year.

Zhang Xin, CEO of SOHO China and one of the country’s top self-made women billionaires, also saw a sharp drop in net worth due to share price decline. SOHO China, Beijing’s largest real estate developer, reported a 65 percent decline in first half net profits, as it completed fewer projects than expected. The share price fell about 20% from a year ago.

Beijing has been trying to curb speculation in the property sector to prevent the formation of asset bubbles. Over the last two years, the government has raised downpayment and mortgage requirements, imposed a property tax for the first time in Shanghai and Chongqing, increased construction of low-cost housing and enacted home-purchase restrictions in about 40 cities.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: forbes, property, property market, rich list, Wahaha, Zong Qinghou
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

What ails China’s lending environment, and why won’t an RRR cut fix it? MarketWatch’s Craig Stephens thinks banks might have a supply-side problem, battling higher funding costs as their expanding suite of wealth management products – and the higher returns they offer investors – squeezes their margins. But Bob Davis and Tom Orlik write in The Wall Street Journal that the problem lies on the demand side, that the government can no longer “turbocharge the economy as they have in the past” by pushing state-owned banks to churn out new loans because the system lacks an ample supply of borrowers willing to take them:

The hesitation to borrow runs across the Chinese economy, from massive state-owned steelmakers struggling with overcapacity to small exporters trying to figure out when the European crisis might abate.

“We don’t need any expansion of credit because we are playing it safe,” said Stanley Lau, managing director of Renley Watch Manufacturing Co., a Hong Kong watch exporter that manufactures in southern China.

“Because of growing uncertainty over the economy, a lot of businesses are reluctant to borrow and, instead, they have decided to put their project or expansion plans on hold,” a senior executive at one of China’s largest banks said.

Even beyond the steelmakers and manufacturers, the troubles plaguing China’s cooling property market don’t help banks’ lending prospects either. Average home prices in 70 Chinese cities fell again in April, as the government continues to demonstrate a commitment to a price correction that it began in 2010. And while property prices may rebound in the 4th quarter as supply begins to ease, one research analyst told China Daily, housing ministry official Zhang Xiaohong told local media on Friday that Beijing won’t reverse its course and that “There is still room for property developers to continue to adjust prices to boost sales volume, but there is no more room for property speculation.” For now, reports Robin Kwong in The Financial Times, developers can only continue to push their large inventories of unoccupied properties:

This dynamic is reflected in the plight of Number 8 Royal Park, a super-luxurious development in Beijing where liveried footmen have been chaperoning potential buyers to assay opulently decorated 520 sq m apartments. The developer is still holding firm on its price tag of over $10m, but sales appear to have stagnated. Staff are still urging clients to buy flats in the same two towers that were on offer a year ago.

The Globe and Mail’s Mark MacKinnon points out that the Chinese government’s handling of the housing market reflects not just an attempt at a market correction, but also a play for political preservation:

That bubble is now deflating, although some economists say the market is still overvalued and that falling property prices will not constitute the main drag on GDP this year.

“You can make a pretty strong case that it’s overvalued, the property market, so I personally don’t think there will be any reversal…I think they’ll hold the line,” said Alaistair Chan, China economist with Moody’s Analytics, who said this year’s forecast for GDP growth may end up around 8 per cent from their previous prediction of 8.2 per cent.

Just as important for China’s government, though, is that restricting property prices to try to keep them within reach of the rising middle class is seen as key to preserving political stability. For an authoritarian regime obsessed with maintaining a “harmonious society,” this has been a relatively dramatic year, with labour protests, self-immolations by Tibetan activists, continuing food inflation and a rare and colourful political scandal involving the murder of a British businessman that felled one of China’s most popular politicians – all ahead of an expected transfer of power at the top that is supposed to begin with the Communist Party’s national congress in October.

As a result, some property developers are settling in with what they have, and downgrading any ambitions of big acquisitions.

Wen Calls for Growth

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao took time during his weekend trip to Wuhan to reiterate the government’s aim of fine-tuning the economy to support growth, according to The China Daily:

“The relationship between maintaining growth, adjusting economic structures and managing inflation, must be properly handled,” Wen said in comments reported by Xinhua News Agency. “We should continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy while giving more priority to maintaining growth.”

The government, he said, will continue to carry out anticipatory adjustments and fine-tuning, boost domestic consumption and promote steady and relatively fast economic growth.

Even if he was only repeating the same long-deployed talking points, Chinese stocks rose today and Bloomberg News reports that Wen’s comments led analysts to speculate that the fine-tuning may become a little more heavy:

The shift in language suggests authorities are “seriously concerned about growth” and “ready to introduce further measures,” Bank of America Corp. said in a research note today. The government on May 12 cut banks’ required reserves for the third time in six months following data that showed trade, industrial production and lending were below forecasts in April.

“The April data has been a wake-up call for China,” said Alaistair Chan, a Sydney-based economist at Moody’s Analytics. “There will probably be some stimulus measures through monetary policy, more bank lending and infrastructure projects being brought forward.”

The Battle For Securities Reform 

Caixin catches up with Guo Shuqing, who took over the helm at the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) last October and has already begun to put his stamp on the job with a flurry of recent regulatory changes. The CSRC’s top priority, and “core challenge” of reform, Guo says, is in the arena of public listing:

Guo has said that a registration system for public listings is in fact not so different in nature from China’s current approval system. In the United States where a registration system is used, regulatory agencies conduct even stricter checks on companies than do their Chinese counterparts. The key is how to define the roles and responsibilities of the regulators, the exchanges and other intermediaries.

In this light, the recently released guidelines on share issue reform tackle the technical details but fail to address the underlying problems of the system. Rent-seeking can’t be eradicated without changing the vetting system. Take the newly appointed officers of the CSRC. As they become familiar with the job, and the temptations for corruption that come with it, won’t they also become less inclined to change the system? Based on the historic lessons at home and abroad, support of the top leadership is vital for a reformer.

Reforms are easier when the stock market is at a low ebb, but they will only get harder and harder. It will be a long-drawn-out war.

Is China Deleveraging?

The Wall Street Journal’s Tom Orlik writes that while China’s credit-fueled growth (which saw the ratio of credit to GDP rise to 173% by the end of 2011) may have saved China’s economy from the global financial crisis, the trend has begun to reverse amid an environment ripe with inflation, an overheated property market, among other things. It’s good for the ratio to come down and it should continue to come down, but this comes with consequences that Beijing can temper in a number of ways:

The government has options for responding. It could further lower the reserve requirement ratio, which would encourage firms to take on more loans as it lowers the cost of capital and signals that the government intends to keep demand on track—buoying confidence about future orders and profitability.

A further step would be to relax the floor on lending interest rates. China’s banks are currently allowed to lend at a discount of up to 10% to the government-set benchmark. People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan said in April that the next step in interest rate reform could be liberalizing the lending rate—suggesting the floor could be lowered.

Beijing also has room to ratchet up its own spending. There are signs that this is already underway. Investment funded from the state budget grew 29% year-on-year in the first four months of this year, partially offsetting a meager 4.2% increase for investment financed by bank lending.

© CDT Money for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: China Securities Regulatory Commission, economic growth, fine-tuning, GDP, Guo Shuqing, middle class, property market, reserve requirement ratio, stock market reform, Wen Jiabao
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

To gauge the status of the scheme, Reuters visited a dozen building sites in the dusty city of Shijiazhuang south of Beijing. A middle-income city of 10 million, including satellite towns, Shijiazhuang is one of the few to have published a public list of its affordable housing projects.

Tall towers rising from flat fields and former industrial sites laid to rest the assumption of some that local governments are simply faking affordable housing starts to meet central government targets. In Shijiazhuang at least, the projects are real.

But a good portion of what’s being built is already-planned construction re-labeled as affordable housing. Those projects aren’t delivering the additional demand for concrete, steel, glass or aluminum window frames that typically ensure that construction gives an outsized boost to economic growth ….

“There’s a big difference between government definitions and what a normal person would consider an ‘affordable house’,” said GK Dragonomics research manager Rosealea Yao.

The focus on affordable housing, however loosely defined, has taken a heavy toll on other projects. The Wall Street Journal recently looked at a stumbling feng shui-compliant high-end canalside development in Wuxi, Jiangsu:

Artists’ renderings showed a forest of gleaming glass buildings, including a 40-story hotel-anchored skyscraper, overlooking yacht-bearing waterways. Even though Wuxi isn’t generally considered among China’s marquee cities, the country’s property-mad investors were hooked. When the first 303 apartments went up for sale in 2009, they sold out within four hours.

Today, the Xi Shui Dong development stands less than half complete, hamstrung by its parent company’s high debt and tough new government restrictions. Last year, unit sales fell 25% from 2010, despite steep discounts. Construction cranes loom over mostly empty streets boasting only a handful of retailers.

It is an increasingly common malady: China’s two-year push to drive down property prices has punished many of the nation’s once highflying property developers and stymied a number of upscale projects …. Policies enacted since 2010 include restrictions on the purchase of second homes, higher down payments and tighter credit.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: house prices, housing market, housing policy, property market, property prices, Shijiazhuang, Wuxi
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

How healthy – or otherwise – is China’s economy? Like the proverbial blind men grasping an elephant, the answer likely depends on where you’re standing ….

“The world is not coming to an end in China,” said Wu Yibing, president of Citic Private Equity Funds Management Co., one of China’s biggest local funds. According to Mr. Wu, the weighted average revenue for companies that Citic PE’s U.S. dollar fund has invested in was up 70% in the first half of the year from a year earlier. Even as the world was losing faith in China, profit for those companies was up 90% over the same period, he said ….

Property mogul Zhang Xin saw things differently – and claimed Mr. Wu’s numbers would likely tell a different story in the three months since June.

“In my 16 years as a developer this [has been] one of the most difficult times,” said Ms. Zhang, chief executive of Soho China, singing a not unfamiliar tune.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economic development, economic downturn, private equity, property market
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China will spend nearly $200bn (£123bn) on the scheme, part of plans to build 36m low-cost homes over the next five years, said deputy housing minister Qi Ji, speaking at an annual political meeting in the capital.

The pledge came a few days after premier Wen Jiabao promised to “resolutely” curb speculation to tackle excessively rapid price increases.

Authorities have taken a series of measures since spring last year, including raising interest rates, increasing the minimum down-payment on second homes and restricting the rights of foreigners to buy property or Chinese citizens to buy multiple units. Two cities are imposing sales taxes.

While the measures have slowed growth, many fear it remains too high. In March 2010, urban housing prices shot up by 11.7% year-on-year, according to figures from the national bureau of statistics. December saw the lowest increase in over a year – but it was still 6.4%.

Economists are watching for the latest data anxiously: independent research from SouFun suggested a month-on-month increase of around 1% in January: the biggest such increase for half a year.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: housing bubble, housing market, property market
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

A series of official comments in recent days have shown that the Chinese government remains committed to forcing down housing prices, despite worries about a weak global economy and complaints from property developers.

The government’s determination to keep cracking down on its frothy real-estate market may be a political necessity but risks hurting growth at a time when much of the world economy is weak, and contrasts sharply with efforts in the U.S. and Japan to add fuel to the fading global recovery.

© Paulina Hartono for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: property market
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

All around the nation, giant state-owned oil, chemical, military, telecom and highway groups are bidding up prices on sprawling plots of land for big real estate projects unrelated to their core businesses.

“These are the ones that have the money to buy the land,” says Prof. Deng Yongheng at the National University in Singapore. “Because in China, it’s the government that controls the money supply and the spending.”

By driving up property prices, the state-owned companies, which are ultimately controlled by the national government, are working at cross-purposes with the central government’s effort to keep China’s real estate boom from becoming a debt-driven speculative bubble — like the one that devastated Western financial markets when it burst two years ago.

Land records show that 82 percent of land auctions in Beijing this year have been won by big state-owned companies outbidding private developers — up from 59 percent in 2008.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: property market, real estate, soe
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China is not a good setting for a Frank Capra tale, but people do have influence over their autocratic masters. Top officials are worried that the property rush — which has led to soaring prices for urban real estate and low prices for old homes and farmland seized for development — is enriching local governments and well-connected developers at the expense of ordinary people and social stability.

Protests like those in Laogucheng — including self-immolations and deadly standoffs — have forced officials to at least consider measures to make it harder to seize property and turn it over to developers without fully compensating those who live on it or use it. Effective confiscation of land nominally owned by the state, but farmed or lived on by the poor, has been a major source of unrest for the past two decades.

In a provisional move, state media revealed this week, China’s cabinet issued an “emergency notice” in recent days demanding that local governments hold officials accountable for “vicious incidents” and, by the end of June, publicize “reasonable” standards of compensation.

But the question is whether that and the newly proposed regulations will be tough enough, or come soon enough, to make much of a difference. For those living in Laogucheng, the chances of a happy ending still seem remote.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: development, forced evictions, property market
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

So is this the Jim Chanos moment where China’s ”treadmill to hell” reaches its destination? Is China ”Dubai times 1000”, as the hedge fund manager claimed?

Hardly. Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen – where real estate excitement has been most frenetic – only account for 8 per cent of Chinese residential construction, according to UBS. Household debt is rising fast but remains minuscule when compared with Australia. Chinese incomes continue to outpace the rise in house prices.

Slowing real estate investment will assist with China’s long-deferred economic rebalancing project, so that Beijing will not become Dubai. Most importantly, when policymakers find they have overapplied the brake – as they probably will – they can simply repeat the global financial crisis recovery program.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: property market, real estate bubble
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China is drawing up a new curb on property developers as part of a host of measures to cool the country’s red-hot property market, the state-controlled China Securities Journal reported Thursday.

The plan would ban developers from investing revenue from pre-sales of uncompleted property developments in new projects, the journal said, citing an unnamed source close to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Developers will be required to deposit the income from such advance sales of uncompleted projects into a special account monitored by the government and will only be able to use the money to pay contractors.

© cctvcctv for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: property market, real estate
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China is expected to impose a moratorium on share issues by real estate companies in mainland markets as part of a broader campaign to rein in rising property prices, state media said Wednesday, potentially blocking $16.1 billion in capital-raising.

The move could delay plans by 45 Chinese companies to raise about 110 billion renminbi, China Daily said, citing unidentified people close to the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

A commission official told Reuters a formal suspension was not in place but confirmed that before approving any share issues in mainland markets, the regulator and the Land Resources Ministry were examining whether property companies had illegally manipulated land prices. The official asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

© cctvcctv for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Information Revolution, property market
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China on Tuesday tightened rules on advance sales of new property developments, in the third move of its kind in less than a week aimed at curbing rampant real estate speculation.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said in a notice on its website that developers cannot receive down payments for unfinished properties without first obtaining government approval.

Once the government gives developers the green light to pre-sell properties, they must publish the prices of each unit in the development within 10 days of receiving approval, the ministry said.

© cctvcctv for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: property market, real estate
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall