Citizens visit a property developer's sales office in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang Province, on March 4, 2023. Photo: VCG

 
The China Securities Regulatory Commission held a meeting on Friday with several top developers and financial institutions to understand the home sales and debt problems of developers while seeking feedback on their need for funding, according to media reports. 

The meeting came after a number of departments - including the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the People's bank of China as well as the National Development and Reform Commission - released positive signals that there would be further support for stable and healthy development of the property market.

The participants in the meeting stated their home sales, cash flow and debt situation, according to domestic media outlet creb.com.

"The meeting indicated that the state and related departments attach importance to the real estate sector, and they will release follow-up policies to stabilize the property market," Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute, told the Global Times on Friday.

The real estate market is expected to gradually improve, helping to ease the decline in sales and aiding risk prevention, Yan noted.

Country Garden, one of China's major developers, released an announcement on Thursday night saying that the company expects its net loss for the half-year ending June 30, 2023 to range from approximately 45 billion yuan ($6.22 billion) to 55 billion yuan.  

The loss is mainly attributable to the downturn in sales in the real estate industry, as well as foreign exchange losses due to fluctuations, the company noted.

Country Garden said that although the company has encountered the greatest difficulties since its establishment, it remains confident in the prospects for China's economy. It vowed to make efforts to ensure delivery of homes, and to steadily promote various business strategies and risk mitigation measures to safeguard sustainable and healthy development and to protect the interests of investors. 

In the first half of 2023, the developer delivered nearly 278,000 units of housing, and it expects to deliver a total of 700,000 units for the whole of 2023.

Some foreign media outlets said that Country Garden's woes could have a chilling effect on homebuyers and financial institutions, further squeezing China's real estate sector.

In response, Yan said that the current problems in the real estate sector may seem bad, but they are actually a continuation of problems from the past. From this perspective, as long as the right macroeconomic and real estate adjustments are in place, the solution to such problems will become easier.

Country Garden won't be the second Evergrande and the risks it faces are controllable, according to Yan. Also, new policies are being rolled out that will boost the confidence of the whole industry. A rebound in sales will create foundations for the resolution of debt problems, Yan noted.

More than 1.65 million presold homes have been delivered in China since the initiative of "ensuring timely delivery of pre-sale housing" was launched in July 2022. 
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202308/1295973.shtml

The overall return-to-work rate of projects with special real estate loans is close to 100 percent and the housing delivery rate of the first batch of special real estate loan projects has exceeded 60 percent, China Media Group reported on Wednesday, citing statistics from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.