China’s recent moves to ease curbs on the real estate sector have sent prices soaring recently, stoking fears that new property bubbles are forming, state media reported yesterday.
Residential property prices in Beijing’s Central Business District rose 6.5 percent in the past week and demand for second-hand houses in some other areas is four times the supply, said the China Daily, citing brokerage Homelink.
It said a land parcel in Beijing, which was withdrawn from a public tender because of a lack of bidders only 15 months ago, was auctioned off on Monday for a record US$585 million.
‘IRRATIONAL’
“The bidders have gone irrational. A bubble in Beijing’s property market is definitely there,” Pan Shiyi (潘石屹), one of the bidders that day and chairman of leading developer SOHO China, said after the auction, the report said.
In Shanghai, developers of the luxury Tomson Rivers apartments, priced at more than US$14,600 per square meter, sold at least 10 units last month, the report said.
That compared with sales of only four units since the project was marketed four years ago, it added.
In the southern city of Guangzhou, the downtown housing price reached US$1,600 square meter in May, close to the record high of US$1,700 in October 2007, the report said.
“One thing we are concerned about is whether there is a new bubble being shaped,” the report quoted China Real Estate Association (中國房地產業協會) secretary-general Gu Yunchang (顧雲昌) as saying. “The possibility of a bubble is pretty big.”
China’s real estate industry was dealt a heavy blow after Beijing introduced new measures in 2007, including raising down-payments on second homes to rein in market speculation, which led to slumps in prices and transactions.
However, the financial crisis prompted authorities to relax the curbs, with local governments relying on preferential policies to boost demand, as the sector is a key driver of growth, the paper said.
IMBALANCES
Meanwhile, China’s central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) said boosting the nation’s consumer spending to redress global imbalances is “easier said than done.”
Zhou said that because it was so difficult to adjust income distribution to encourage consumption, expanding investment, the key component of the nation’s 4 trillion yuan (US$585 billion) stimulus package, is the “second-best” option.
He spoke at a conference in Beijing yesterday.
China should take measures to prevent investment from ending up idle, Zhou said.
Rising savings in the US, China’s second-biggest export market, may result in lower demand for Chinese goods, risking overcapacity and slower economic growth, he said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)