China to boost financing for approved housing projects to $560 billion to counter property slump

HONG KONG (AP) — China will expand the amount of financing available for housing projects on a “white list” to 4 trillion yuan ($562 billion), officials said Thursday in Beijing's latest moves to reverse a slump in the property industry.

Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Ni Hong said during a news conference Thursday in Beijing that measures will also be taken to redevelop 1 million urban villages across the country. Ni stopped short of elaborating on the scale of the funding for the redevelopment.

He said that the housing market had “bottomed out” after three years, with October data showing a spike in property sales.

The government has been redoubling efforts in recent weeks to stabilize the real estate market after a downturn triggered by a crackdown on excess borrowing. Once a bright spot in China’s economy, the property market has since become a drag.

On Saturday, authorities announced that they would allow local governments to use funds from unallocated government bond quotas and to raise debt ceilings to help prop up the property market.

In late September, the outstanding mortgage rates for individual borrowers were also cut by an average of 0.5 percentage points, and the minimum down payment ratio on purchases of second homes was also lowered to 15% from 25%.

In January, officials announced a list of housing projects that would be eligible for financing. Loans for such projects had reached 2.23 trillion yuan ($313 billion) as of Wednesday, said Xiao Yuanqi, deputy director of the National Financial Regulatory Administration.

Some analysts however say that measures implemented so far will not be enough to solve China's property crisis in the near term.

“It’s a ticking time bomb that will take years, maybe even decades, to defuse,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management. “No matter how much money or effort they throw at it, this problem isn’t going away anytime soon.”