China enacts plan to save battered housing market
Published: 04:15 17 May 2024 EDT
China has made another attempt to save its suffering real estate industry with new measures to help combat plummeting house prices.
Chinese regulators and its central bank will greenlight local governments to buy apartments, ease mortgage requirements and complete unfinished properties.
It comes after Chinese house prices sunk to a nine-year low, with the reverberations of the weaker industry, which at one point accounted for a fifth of the country's economic activity, being felt across the nation.
Some 20 million homes are believed to have been left abandoned or unfinished because of the housing market downturn, denting consumer confidence and reducing overall spending.
In April, retail sales grew by 2.3%, the weakest increase since December 2022 and down from 3.1% in March.
Tension between the US and China has also been growing in recent months, with both countries imposing limitations on imports and exports from the other nation.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration said it would be placing a 100% US import tariff on Chinese EVs.
The US also upped import tariffs on other green technology components such as solar panels, semiconductors and battery components.
