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BIZCHINA / Center
More foreign capital flows in property sector
By Song Hongmei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-08-08 14:54
An increasing amount of foreign investment capital flowed into China's
real estate market between January and June, according to the National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Data from NBS show that in the first half of this year, realized foreign
investment in the property sector accounted for 24.1 percent of the
country's total used foreign capital, 11 percentage points higher than
the whole of last year.
Foreign investment in property projects averaged US$7.04 million between
January and February, up US$3.61 million from last year's average, while
investment averaged US$7.17 million between January and March, up US$3.74
million.
Special coverage:
Housing in China
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During January and February, 18 foreign companies invested more than US$2
million each in Southwest China's Sichuan Province. More than half of
them invested in the province's booming real estate market. A total of
US$169.15 million realized foreign capital was recorded in the property
sector, making up 79.3 percent of the province's total.
The growth rate of foreign capital in China's property sector surged
154.4 percent on a yearly basis in the first three months, 101.4
percentage points higher than all of last year. That was also 127.5
percentage points higher than the growth rate of total investment in the
property sector during the same period.
Growing foreign investment in the property sector will propel unbalanced
development of housing supply in China, as most, if not all, of the
investments go to medium-to-high-end housing markets, some analysts said.
China's vacant commodity residential buildings of key property developers
totaled 22.42 million square meters in floor space last year, and more
than 70 of them were units of more than 100 square meters each.
Analysts attributed the increasing vacant housing mainly to the short
supply of affordable housing for lower income earners and the escalating
housing prices to speculative purchases of medium-to-high-end houses.
Moreover, more foreign capital in the property sector may create tighter
competition for other sectors for sources of funding.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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