China plans to stick to its tight property sector policies and a nationwide rebound in home prices remains unlikely, a senior official at the housing ministry said in remarks published by the state media yesterday.
The comments underscore Beijing’s determination to keep a lid on rising home prices – a source of social discontent – especially in the run-up to a once-a-decade leadership transition this year.
To curb price rises, Beijing is urging the local authorities to increase housing supply and to strictly implement a policy aimed at restricting home purchases, said the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper. It quoted an unnamed official at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
“With more affordable housing projects put into operation and market expectations kept stable, conditions do not exist for a full-scale rebound in house prices,” said the official.
The comments came amid new concerns that a new round of property inflation was in the offing, with data showing a pick-up in housing sales and rise in property prices following eight consecutive monthly declines.
Latest figures showed that Chinese house prices rose 0.1 per cent last month from July, extending a modest price increase into a second straight month.
Revenue from property sales in the country rose for the third month in a row last month from a year earlier, reinforcing signs of a recovery in the sector.
But the official played down worries about a rapid revival in the property market, saying the recent price increase was mainly a result of stronger real demand from first-time buyers rather than speculative demand from investors.
Officials have rejected calls to relax restrictions on the property market in order to bolster the economy, on course for its seventh straight quarterly slowdown over the July-September period.
Full-year growth for this year is likely to fall to 7.7 per cent, the weakest showing since 1999.
Source : Today – 24 Sep 2012