China regulators put brakes on onshore debt issues

Hong Kong

THE feverish pace of onshore debt issues by Chinese property developers is set to slow amid signs that regulators are tightening issuance to control rising property prices.

Underwriters said hardly any new developer bond applications were accepted in August in the stock exchange markets, following a flood of onshore deals totalling 1.1 trillion yuan (S$224.1 billion) in the past 16 months, according to Wind, a Chinese financial data provider.

The stock market has become the predominant venue for developers to raise funds onshore. By contrast, the interbank bond market saw total issuance from developers of just around 200 billion yuan in the same period.

Ma Jun, the central bank's chief economist, told the China Business News in an interview that China should take steps to curb the flow of capital into the property market and state-owned companies to help slow the rise of debt levels in the economy, Reuters reported on Monday. "We should take a lot of measures to curb excessive bubbles in the real estate sector, curb the flow of excessive financial resources into the …