Prices for new homes in China fell in more than 60 percent of major cities last month from March, the government said yesterday, as moves to curb the property market took effect.
Out of 70 major cities tracked by the government, 43 registered month-on-month falls in house prices last month, although that number was less than the 46 cities recorded in March.
Prices were unchanged in 24 cities last month, while only three cities saw price rises, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
China has implemented several measures aimed at limiting runaway property prices for more than a year, including bans on buying second homes, hiking minimum down-payments and introducing property taxes in certain cities.
Despite worries about the impact on the economy, authorities have shown little sign of easing their tight policies.
“We must firmly strengthen control of the property market ... not allowing the adjustment and control [policy] to be reversed,” a senior housing ministry official said in comments published yesterday in the official Securities Times newspaper.
China recently announced a slew of disappointing economic figures for last month, prompting the government to cut the amount of money banks must keep in reserve in a bid to boost lending — and therefore growth.
Property investment also helps drive growth and land sale revenue is a key source of income for local governments.
However, analysts said little change in government policy was expected in the short term.
“The adjustment of home prices is still in the middle of a long cycle. We expect home prices to remain weak in the coming months,” Nomura Securities chief China economist Zhang Zhiwei (張智威) said.
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
China has threatened severe economic retaliation against Japan if Tokyo further restricts sales and servicing of chipmaking equipment to Chinese firms, complicating US-led efforts to cut the world’s second-largest economy off from advanced technology. Senior Chinese officials have repeatedly outlined that position in recent meetings with their Japanese counterparts, people familiar with the matter said. Toyota Motor Corp privately told officials in Tokyo that one specific fear in Japan is that Beijing could react to new semiconductor controls by cutting the country’s access to critical minerals essential for automotive production, the people said, declining to be named discussing private affairs. Toyota is among
RSS