China housing minister plans briefing after Beijing vows support

CHINA’S housing minister will hold a press briefing on Oct 17, likely providing more details of measures to support the country’s slumping property sector and bolster economic growth.

Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Ni Hong, along with unidentified officials from the People’s Bank of China, Ministry of Finance and the National Financial Regulatory Administration, will join a news conference at 10 am in Beijing, according to the State Council Information Office. The focus will be on promoting what it called the steady and healthy development of the property sector.

The event comes a few days after Finance Ministry officials promised efforts to back the real estate industry in a much-anticipated weekend briefing. They include steps to allow local governments to use funds from special bonds to buy unsold homes, although officials didn’t provide further details.

Ni will be the latest senior economic official to speak in public about the government’s pivot towards stabilising growth. In recent weeks, PBOC governor Pan Gongsheng, Minister of Finance Lan Fo’an and the chairman of the country’s economic planning agency, Zheng Shanjie, have all participated in high-profile briefings that appeared designed to demonstrate coordination among agencies.

Beijing has signalled its desire to draw a line under the country’s growth slowdown, unleashing a series of stimulus measures from monetary to regulatory easing since late September. A rare Politburo meeting last month that focused on the economy also made its first pledge to stop the property market from “declining.”

To underscore the urgency of arresting the property sector slump, the value of new-home sales from the 100 biggest real estate companies declined at a faster rate in September and fell almost 38 per cent from a year earlier, according to preliminary data from China Real Estate Information. BLOOMBERG