Sawt Falasteen - China to boost credit for property market, renovate 1 mn homes

The teetering real-estate sector has long accounted for around a quarter of gross domestic product and experienced dazzling growth for two decades but a years-long housing slump has battered growth as the country's leadership eyes a target of around five percent for 2024.

At a briefing on Thursday, Housing Minister Ni Hong offered fresh help, saying Beijing will "increase the credit scale of white-list projects to four trillion" yuan ($562 billion) by the end of the year.

The "white list" scheme, announced earlier this year, pushes local authorities to recommend housing projects for financial support and work with banks to ensure their completion.

"The urban real estate financing coordination mechanism should strive to include all eligible real-estate projects in the white-list," Ni said.

"An additional one million worn-out homes... will be renovated," he added. "There are many safety hazards and poor living environments in urban villages, and people are eager to renovate."

The move, he said, would "be conducive to absorbing the existing stock of commercial housing".

China's leadership last month warned the economy was being plagued by "new problems", as officials unveiled a raft of stimulus that represented one of the biggest drives to boost growth in years.

Among the measures were a string of interest rate cuts, the loosening of restrictions on home-buying and moves to free up cash for banks to lend more.

But a blistering market rally on hopes of major stimulus has faltered as authorities refrained from providing a specific figure for the bailout or fleshing out any of the plans.

A number of major cities have also in recent months eased house buying restrictions -- most recently this week in Chengdu, the capital of southwestern province of Sichuan, and the northern port city of Tianjin.

The latest announcement comes as China prepares to release third-quarter growth data Friday, which is forecast to be the slowest this year.

And analysts surveyed by AFP predict 4.9 percent overall growth in 2024 -- even worse than last year, which was the weakest in decades outside of Covid.

Still, Beijing has said it is "fully confident" it will reach its five percent goal.

J.AbuHassan--SF-PST