China's inflation has accelerated as bank lending exceeded estimates and property prices jumped by a record, increasing pressure on the government to raise interest rates and let the currency appreciate. Consumer prices rose 2.8 per cent last month from a year earlier, the fastest pace in 18 months, while real estate prices jumped 12.8 per cent, the statistics bureau said yesterday. Meanwhile, new...
China Property Prices
CHEUNG Kong (Holdings) Ltd, the Hong Kong developer controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing, said efforts by China to cool its property market are 'timely' after record price gains. 'You want to take action before the market gets too hot,' Justin Chiu, executive director of Cheung Kong, said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday. 'Prices have gone up really quite a lot; people buying for their own...
CAPITALAND president and chief executive Liew Mun Leong said at a forum yesterday that there is no widespread asset bubble in China, because outside certain major cities, people's mortgage payments have not become unaffordable relative to their incomes. Mr Liew told students at the National University of Singapore Business School that there are 'speculative forces' in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai,...
On Jan 6, a day after the government announced a grand plan to transform Hainan province into a world-class tourism paradise, retiree Zhou Yafen woke up to see crowds 'rushing madly to buy apartments' on the island. 'Property prices shot up like an arrow,' said the 59-year-old, who owns a 125 sq m flat in provincial capital Haikou that she bought in 2005. Its value today has gone up by more than eight...
China's property market will probably go through a "more meaningful correction" this year because the price gains in 2009 aren't sustainable, according to Mr Christopher Lee, corporate ratings director at Standard and Poor's. The outlook for the Chinese market is "neutral" for this year, Mr Bei Fu, an associate director of corporate ratings at S&P, said during a conference call with Mr Lee on...