Thursday, December 11, 2008

Urban Property Prices Up In China

Source : The Business Times, December 11, 2008

(SHANGHAI) China's urban property prices rose 0.2 per cent year-on-year (yoy) in November, lower than the 1.6 per cent rise in October and the slowest growth in more than three years, according to official figures.

Prices in 70 major cities across the country rose by 0.2 per cent year-on-year, the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning agency said in a statement on its website on Tuesday.

The figure represents the lowest growth since the government started releasing monthly statistics of property prices in July 2005.

Property prices in Shenzhen city, just north of Hong Kong, posted the biggest loss among all the cities, declining 14.8 per cent from a year earlier, according to the statement.

Property prices in the city dropped 12.6 per cent yoy in October.

The weakening property market is likely to place further pressure on China's slowing economy as investment in the sector accounts for more than 20 per cent of the country's urban fixed asset investment.

To keep the property market growing, Premier Wen Jiabao has said that increasing investment in low-price housing projects will be one of the priorities when the government rolls out a US$586 billion stimulus package. -- AFP

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