Chinese banks could withstand a worst case scenario of a 50 percent drop in home prices, according to stress tests conducted by regulators, a state media report said yesterday.
“The worries and suspicions that China’s banking industry will be dragged down by real--estate developers are groundless and impossible,” China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) chairman Liu Mingkang (劉明康) was quoted as telling broadcaster CCTV, according to the China Daily newspaper.
He said Chinese banks could survive a housing price slide of anywhere between 30 percent and 50 percent.
The CBRC was commissioned in August last year to evaluate how Chinese banks would in the event of a fall in property prices.
Prices are a major source of official and consumer concern in China with the cost of apartments rising out of the reach of many ordinary citizens, leading to the possibility that they could spark social unrest.
Beijing has introduced a range of measures aimed at reducing prices since late 2009, such as bans on buying second homes in some cities, hiking minimum downpayments and trial property taxes in Shanghai and Chongqing.
However, officials are treading carefully as the real-estate sector is a major driver of economic growth and land sales to developers are an important source of revenue for cash-strapped local governments.
The cost of new apartments in 12 out of 70 Chinese cities tracked by the National Bureau of Statistics fell last month, compared with a decline in nine cities in May, according to a statement released two weeks ago.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last