Companies
Property market collapse ruled out
China’s real estate market will not collapse as happened in Japan two decades ago, because the situations of the two countries are very different, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Chen Zhenggao said on Tuesday.
“It is not appropriate to compare the real estate market in China with that of Japan in the 1990s, as the two countries are in different stages of economic development and urbanization. We also have different macro policies to control the situation,” Chen said at a news conference.
Chen’s remarks came amid growing concern over the potential risks in China’s real estate sector as home prices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have surged by 20 to 30 percent since the Lunar New Year. In Shenzhen, prices have increased by 72 percent over the past 12 months, according to the Shenzhen Urban Planning, Land and Resources Commission.
The supply-demand imbalance and the easing of monetary policy are regarded as major reasons for the latest price surges in big cities.
The soaring prices have led to worries that China may repeat what happened in the 1990s in Japan, where the burst of the real estate bubble resulted in an economic recession for almost 20 years.
“Stabilizing home prices in first-tier cities and some second-tier cities is one of our primary tasks. We will take timely, relevant measures, including increasing the supply of land and small and medium-sized apartments, using different policies and cracking down on illegal behavior to push up prices,” said Chen.
According to Li Daokui, a political adviser and an economics professor at Tsinghua University, there is no bubble in the first-tier cities’ property market, based on the price-to-rent ratio. More supply is needed to ease price increases in such cities, Li said.
Yan Yuejin, director…
China
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