China sees housing sales stabilised and recovering: housing minister

[BEIJING] Price divergence in China's big and small cities poses a challenge for housing market policy controls although housing sales have stabilised and are recovering, the housing minister Chen Zhenggao said on Tuesday.

Mr Chen told reporters at a news conference in Beijing on the sidelines of the annual parliament session that he was confident of stable and healthy development of the country's housing market.

He added that it is important to stabilise home prices in tier one cities and some tier two cities amid surging housing prices in these cities. And the government will increase land supply in big cities to stabilise market sentiment.

China's housing market bottomed out in the second half of 2015 after cooling for more than a year, but a strong rebound in prices in the biggest cities has sparked concerns that some markets may be overheating, raising fears of a property bubble.

Mr Chen said earlier this month that the four biggest cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, are working on steps to cool their property markets in response to recent strong housing sales and prices.

REUTERS