BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The
China Real Estate Association (CREA) has denied claims that the government will
act to bolster the housing market by freeing up financing.
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Visitors view models of apartment
buildings in a real estate fair in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong
Province, on April 5, 2008. (Xinhua/Fan Changguo)
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A report in the China Business Journal on Saturday
quoted an unnamed CREA official as saying the government would let market forces
determine the course of the housing sector.
The CREA official rejected a report in the
Shanghai-based Oriental Post earlier in the week that Wang Yiming, a researcher
with the National Development and Reform Commission, had said the government
might work out policies to boost the real estate market.
The CREA official reportedly said this "is
impossible" as land agents had sent submissions to the government, seeking
looser credit regulation and lower taxes, but no positive response had been
received.
Experts attributed the unfavorable response to the
sound business conditions of banks, indicating that the real estate sector's
fall was not serious enough for the government to take action.
The leading commercial banks still posted solid
earnings in the first half. The largest lender, the Industrial and Commercial
Bank of China (ICBC), said on Thursday its first half after-tax profits totaled
64.88 billion yuan (9.47 billion U.S. dollars), which made it the world's most
profitable bank.
An imbalance in supply and demand had led to falling
housing prices. Many homebuyers were reportedly in negative equity with their
mortgages and were abandoning their homes to banks.
Many developers had to lend large amounts from banks,
and the overstock of houses would force them to default. All of these would lead
to a possible credit crisis for banks.
The country's real estate developers sold about 260
million sq m houses in the first six months, representing a decrease of 7.2
percent over the same period last year. Meanwhile, vacant houses totaled 129 mln
sq m by the end of July, up 6.1 percent on year.
Housing prices up 7% in major Chinese
cities in July
BEIJING, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Prices of real estate in
70 major Chinese cities rose 7.0 percent in July on the same month of last year,
1.2 percentage points lower than the June level, according to the National
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Bureau of Statistics
on Tuesday.
The NDRC, the country's top economic planning organ,
said the growth rate had slowed down for six consecutive months. Full story
