戴德梁行：今日全球楼市速览(2010.03.29)

Mainland China

1.China will see a further slowdown of loan growth in March, which may help tackle the potential asset bubble possibly generated from the excess liquidity in the market, said Zhu Min, deputy governor of China's central bank, here on Thursday. The slackening of pace is "a good sign", which indicates healthier lending structure and distribution, said the senior official of the People's Bank of China while attending the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference. China's new lending in the first two months of 2010 surpassed 2 trillion yuan ($292.82 billion), while the figure in February was 700.1 billion yuan ($102.5 billion), much lower than the one in January, according to the officially released data. (China Daily).

2. Two Hong Kong-listed mainland developers posted sharp increases in core profit for last year thanks to the country's robust property market. KWG Property Holdings posted a 95.4 per cent jump in earnings to 720.1 million yuan (HK$818.6 million), while Yuexiu Property saw profit from its core business leap 73.6 per cent to HK$725 million. Both firms are optimistic about the future even though the overall market is not expected to be as buoyant owing to government measures to cool surging home prices. (SCMP).

3. Wharf (Holdings) yesterday bought a residential site in Hangzhou for 24,621 yuan (HK$27,992) per square metre, a record for the city in terms of floor area. Wharf’s winning bid of 2.02 billion yuan saw off competition from Greentown China Holdings, Binjiang Real Estate and Youngor Group. The price surpassed a record set in August by local developer Hangzhou Xizi Group, which paid 24,295 yuan per sq m for a residential site. Wharf’s 24,002 sq m site near the city centre could provide a maximum gross floor area of 82,000 sq m. (SCMP).

Hong Kong

1. Hong Kong's biggest developers are capping the number of flats an individual can buy in some projects to cool speculation, but some say the move is ineffective and derided it as a "sales gimmick". In a move to ease concerns greedy speculators are putting property out of the reach of average people, Cheung Kong (Holdings), Sun Hung Kai Properties and Henderson Land Development will implement the restrictions to stop multiple properties at estates being scooped up by one person. Analysts say that by voluntarily implementing the caps, developers may be heading off more heavy-handed intervention by the government, which has already declared it wants to cool the market. (SCMP).