China’s all-important property market shows no sign of rebound in new year
China’s key real estate sector hasn’t shown much improvement following a flurry of government measures taken to boost the industry, even as other parts of the economy seem to be stabilizing.
New property sales reached a total of 1.06 trillion yuan ($147 billion) in the first two months of this year, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday. That’s equivalent to a fall of 29.3% compared to the same period in 2023.
The drop also marks a much faster pace of decline from the year-ago period, when new property sales dipped just 0.1%.
Property investment fell 9% in the January-to-February period, which was faster than the 5.7% decrease registered during the same period last year.
“The correction in property construction is still in its early stages,” Capital Economics analysts said in a research note on Monday. “We expect it [property construction] to halve in the coming years, pulling down economic growth over the medium-term.” However, other parts of the economy — including consumption, industrial production and infrastructure investment — appear to show improvement thanks to a holiday spending boom, strong exports and state-led infrastructure push.
