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REAL ESTATE
CHINA WIDE
     
49 cities miss deadline for price targets (CD, April 5)
China will likely face a long and tough battle to curb soaring property prices, especially since most local governments failed to establish strong price control targets by a deadline set for the end of March, analysts said. On Jan 26, the State Council, China's Cabinet, put into effect limits on the prices of properties and began requiring local authorities to set targets to control new home prices this year. Those policies and others were meant to cool down the country's overheated property market.
     
CITIC sets sights on $600m for fourth China fund (PERE, April 6)
Hong Kong-based private equity and real estate firm CITIC Capital will begin fundraising this year for its fourth opportunity fund. The firm is aiming to raise up to $600 million for a fund with the working title of CITIC Capital China Retail Investment Fund, the capital of which is expected to be used for retail investments in across China.
     
R&F Properties' contracted sales total RMB 2.21 bln in Mar (CK, April 6)
Guangzhou R&F Properties Co Ltd, one of the five major real estate developers in Guangdong Province, on Apr. 4 said it realized RMB 2.21 billion in contracted sales in March, representing a year-on-year decrease of 27%. Of the total sales, RMB 812 million was derived from property sales in Guangzhou, RMB 644 million in Beijing, RMB 255 million in Tianjin, RMB 33 million in Hainan Province and RMB 80 million in Shanghai.
     
Country Garden's contracted sales surge 45% in Q1 (CK, April 6)
China's property developers are diversifying their business lines, exploring different market segments and expanding to lower-tier cities to deal with the nation's rigorous real estate tightening policies, industry insiders said on Friday. The government's constraints on the residential sector, and its increasing efforts to boost the supply of affordable housing, have seen a growing number of property firms redoubling their efforts to explore the commercial sector and spread their risks.
     
Sales fall as tightening policies bite (CD, April 6)
China's key cities experienced a big fall in property sales last month over the same period in 2010, showing that tightening real estate policies are beginning to bite, China Index Academy said in a report on Tuesday. Among the 30 large- and medium-sized cities the academy monitors, nearly 80 percent saw a year-on-year drop in property sales, with Beijing leading the trend with a fall of 48 percent. However, on a monthly basis, these cities still reported a robust growth in property sales, led by second-tier cities, including Baotou, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and Dalian, Liaoning province, which reported growth of more than 100 percent.
     
Zhong An Real Estate sets RMB 5-bln sales target for 2011 (CK, April 7)
Zhong An Real Estate Ltd, which is engaged in property development, leasing and hotel operation, expects its sales to reach RMB 5 billion in 2011, and it has earmarked RMB 3.4 billion of capital expenditure for this year, sources reported, citing Chairman Assistant Chen Bo as saying. In the first quarter of this year, the company's sales reached RMB 600 million. Its sales were RMB 3.8 billion in 2010.
     
Cheung Kong's Hui Xian REIT to raise up to RMB 12 bln in HK IPO (CK, April 7)
Cheung Kong Holdings Ltd plans to launch an initial public offering for Hui Xian REIT, its spin-off real estate investment trust unit, to raise RMB 10 billion to RMB 12 billion in Hong Kong Stock Exchange, sources reported, citing a person familiar with the situation as saying. Hui Xian REIT, which is set to be the first RMB-denominated real estate investment trust to list in Hong Kong, will start retail sales on Apr. 11 and will close subscriptions on Apr. 19. The company will price the IPO on Apr. 19.
     
China to ban foreign investment in villas (CD, April 7)
China is to ban foreign investment in the construction of villas, apparently part of government efforts to cool the real estate market, Reuters reported. To tame the record-high home prices and control inflation, the government has tightened bank lending to domestic property developers and introduced a long-debated property tax in Shanghai and Chongqing, the report said.
     
Beijing, Shanghai to be 3rd, 4th choices for billionaires (CD, April 7)
Shanghai and Beijing could become the third and fourth choices for the world's billionaires in ten years, though New York and London will remain the world's top two cities, a latest survey has found. Singapore is now the most popular city in Asia Pacific region for the globally wealthy individuals, local Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao reported Thursday. About 22 percent of the billionaires from East Asia said they would consider Singapore as their first choice when emigrating, compared with 17 percent for both Canada and Australia.
YANGTZE RIVER DELTA & E. CHINA
     
Beijing developer expands in Shanghai (SD, April 5)
BEIJING-BASED real estate developer SOHO China will acquire a land plot in the Caojiadu area of Shanghai for 1.634 billion yuan (US$249.5 million). The deal involving a 14,832-square-meter plot is the fifth major purchase in the city by SOHO China since August 2009. Located on Wanhangdu Road and currently owned by Shanghai Jing'an Real Estate (Group) Co, the mixed development will have a developable space of 81,000 square meters, consisting of apartments and office and retail spaces.
     
Constructions set to begin on Shanghai Disneyland: report (CP, April 5)
Construction of the world's sixth Disney amusement park will start in Shanghai Friday following years of negotiations between the U.S. company and Chinese authorities, the Wall Street Journal said. Walt Disney Co. and its local partners have issued invitations to ¡°a special event in Shanghai¡± on April 8, the paper reported Saturday, quoting an anonymous source. AFP could not immediately confirm the report with the Shanghai municipal authorities or Disney's Chinese partner, the Shanghai Shendi Group Co. Ltd., the consortium that will operate the project.
BOHAI REGION & NE CHINA
     
Beijing wants private investments in public housing (CD, April 5)
Beijing is seeking nongovernment capital to contribute 60 percent of the budget and may encourage it to fund the city¡¯s subsidized housing construction, Beijing News reported Saturday. Beijing-based private enterprises may be allowed to build public rental housing on their own land, said Song Yu, vice-director of the municipal development and reform commission.
     
Beijingers feel squeeze most (Standard, April 5)
Beijing has imposed the strictest measures among all mainland cities as part of the country's efforts to curb property speculation and stabilize prices. Chinese citizens are required to put down 60 percent of the property price as downpayment for their second home and pay a mortgage interest rate at not less than 1.1 times that of the benchmark interest rate. In addition, nonresidents can only buy a home in Beijing after paying income tax in the capital for five years. These measures have succeeded in depressing both the city's property sales volume by 60 percent and the selling price by 11.2 percent in the first quarter.
     
8 plots were transacted in Tianjin with total value of RMB1.267 billion (Guandian, April 8)
8 commercial usage plots were transacted in Tianjin on April 8. Total transaction value was RMB1.267 billion. Total site area of these plots was 330,174.7 sq m. All the purchasers were Tianjin¡¯s local developers.
     
Beijing housing transaction declined around 40% during the first quarter (WSJ, April 4)
During the first quarter, Beijing new housing transaction units was 20700 units, down around 40% quarter-on-quarter, which was also the lowest figure during the past three years.
ECONOMICS, DEMOGRAPHICS, INFRASTRUCTURE & COMPANY EXPANSIONS
CHINA WIDE
     
China¡¯s Central Bank Raises Interest Rates (NYT, April 5)
China raised interest rates on Tuesday for the fourth time in six months, the latest move aimed at reining in inflation and a looming property bubble and slowing an economy that is threatening to overheat. The central bank raised the benchmark one-year bank deposit rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 3.25 percent, effective Wednesday. The one-year lending rate rose by the same amount, to 6.31 percent. The latest rate increase, announced on a national holiday when the financial markets were closed, was widely expected by analysts, some of whom say they believe it will be followed by another increase in May.
     
China's Big Four banks extend RMB 242 billion of loans in Mar (CK, April 6)
The Big Four state-owned banks in China extended RMB 242 billion worth of new RMB-denominated loans in March this year, domestic media reported. The figure was less than the RMB 265.8 billion new loans issued in the same month of last year but higher than the RMB 21.8 billion in February. According to the report, China Construction Bank Co, Agricultural Bank of China Ltd, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd and Bank of China Ltd lent RMB 69 billion, RMB 64 billion, RMB 61 billion, and RMB 48 billion worth of RMB-denominated loans last month, respectively.
     
Dell to raise spending on China operations (SCMP, April 7)
Dell, buoyed by significant demand in the mainland's public sector and large-enterprise markets, will boost spending in key facilities, services and solutions for corporate customers in its second-biggest market after the United States. The initiative announced yesterday is part of a US$1 billion global investment programme this year by the world's second-largest supplier of personal computers to build multiple data centres, enterprise solution hubs and so-called cloud computing services over the next 24 months.
     
PBOC does 107b yuan repos, injects 28b yuan to market (CD, April 7)
China's central bank will drain 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) from the money markets through 91-day bond repurchase agreements and 97 billion yuan through 28-day bond repurchase agreements on Thursday, Reuters reported, citing the traders. According to the report, it means that the central bank will inject a net 28 billion yuan into the market this week. Last week, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) conducted a net drain of 153 billion yuan from the market. PBOC will mop up 76 billion yuan by selling three-month and one-year bills on Thursday, the report said.
     
Urbanization to exceed 70% by 2030: CASS (CD, April 7)
China will accelerate the pace of its urbanization in the next 20 years, with the urban population to reach 70 to 75 percent by the end of 2030, according to a recent report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). The report also said that the recent labor shortage in eastern coastal areas, which many analysts have said shows the increasing unwillingness of rural people to move to urban areas because of the surging cost of living, will not hamper the country's urbanization process in the long run.
YANGTZE RIVER DELTA & E. CHINA
     
Hyundai Heavy starts work at R&D center in Shanghai (KH, April 5)
The world¡¯s largest shipyard Hyundai Heavy Industries announced Monday that its Shanghai-based Global Research and Development Center began operations this month. According to the company, the R&D center will first focus on developing new products and technologies in areas concerning Hyundai Heavy¡¯s current operations in China including construction equipment and engines. In the long term, the center will move on to developing products with growing markets such as robot systems, maritime wind power and smart grids.
PEARL RIVER DELTA & S. CHINA
     
Guangxi approved to issue RMB 6-bln government bonds (CK, April 6)
The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has received approval from China's State Council to issue RMB 6 billion worth of government bonds in 2011, sources reported. According to the plan, the Guangxi government will issue three-year bonds worth a total of RMB 3 billion, of which RMB 2.6 billion of the proceeds will be used for the development of indemnificatory housing project and RMB 400 million for railway development. The remaining RMB 3 billion worth of five-year bonds will be issued by the local government, which will principally use the proceeds to start residential property projects for low-income families.
     
New doubt over Shenzhen-Zhongshan link (SCMP, April 7)
A project to give Shenzhen much-wanted direct acess to the western Pearl River Delta is in danger of being shelved again. Shenzhen first came up with the plan to build an underwater tunnel or a bridge to connect it with Zhongshan about five years ago - shortly after its request to be included in the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge scheme was rejected by Beijing due to Hong Kong's strong reaction. Shenzhen responded by proposing to build the tunnel or bridge, which also raised concerns in Hong Kong as the project was to run parallel to the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge. Some mainland experts estimated that the Shenzhen-Zhongshan corridor could lure 40 per cent of the bridge's likely traffic away.
     
Financial assets bourse set up in Qianhai (Shenzhen Daily, April 08)
The Shenzhen Qianhai Financial Assets Exchange was established Thursday to pursue innovation in the finance industry. It is the only State-owned trading institution in the finance industry in Qianhai, a 15-km coastal area in Shenzhen¡¯s Nanshan District to be jointly developed as a hub for modern service industries by Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The exchange is wholly owned by Shenzhen United Property and Share Rights Exchange (UPEX), the only comprehensive property exchange market in the city.
BOHAI REGION & NE CHINA
     
Bank of Beijing, ING to boost capital in China JV (China Daily, April 11)
Bank of Beijing Co Ltd said on Monday that it has agreed with ING Insurance to lift capital investment in a Chinese joint venture by 600 million yuan ($91.81 million). The new capital would be injected over five years, with the first phase of 125 million yuan to be paid before the end of June. The city-focused lender also plans to raise up to 11.8 billion yuan through a share placement.
     
Beijing Wumart To Invest CNY400 Million For China Store Expansion (China Retail News, April 11)
Beijing-based supermarket operator Wumart Stores Inc. has announced that it plans to invest CNY400 million in store expansion in 2011. The company plans to open five to 12 hypermarkets and 50 convenience stores in 2011, increasing its sales area by about 15%.
     
BDA sees 20.2% rise in gross industrial output value in Jan-Feb (China Knowledge, April 6)
Beijing Economic-technological Development Area, or BDA, saw gross industrial output value in the area grow 20.2% year on year to RMB 39.49 billion in the first two months of this year. During the period from January to February, BDA attracted 144 enterprises to the area, 41 more than in the same period of last year.
GOVERNMENT POLICY
CHINA WIDE
     
Central departments issue budgets to public (CD, April 6)
Chinese ministries began in early April to issue their budget plans for the year to meet a goal of giving the public a glimpse into their finances, even though critics might contend the budgets fall short of providing enough detail. The publications marked the second release of budget plans by nearly every ministry and came in response to the central government's demand for more transparency in local government spending.