发布时间：2006年06月08日
June 2006
By J.R. Wu, Dow Jones Newswires
The problems plaguing China's property market can be traced back to uneven growth in the country's economy and its hobbled capital markets, rather than speculators seeking a quick profit, an industry veteran said.
The early stages of China's economic development have been about opportunities, including those in the domestic real estate sector, Jianping Mei, incoming director for the Real Estate Center at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview Friday.
"People are, very basically, grabbing opportunity and as a result they have not had time to sit down and think about some fundamental issues," he said. "I think this is true both for industry, as well as for consumers, as well as for the government," he said.
Over the past two decades as China moved toward a more capitalist than centrally-planned economy, rapid urban development has concentrated in a few first-tier cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen.
The dynamics are changing with growth of second-tier cities taking off, but an uneven spread of prime real estate nationwide has resulted in overheating in different segments and localities of the domestic property market that can threaten overall economic growth.
Property prices in 70 of China's large- and medium-sized cities rose 5.6% in April from the same period last year, accelerating from March's 5.4% rise, government data show.
At the same time, development of the country's financial sector has been relatively slow.
Lack of financial product development in China has forced investors wanting to participate in China's growth story to channel funds into the local housing market, as an alternative to parking them in domestic equities or bank deposits, said Mei, who is also a tenured associate professor of finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Allowing more capital outflows like a Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor program - which would allow Chinese institutions to systematically invest overseas - will help alleviate some of the pressure in the local property market as other investment targets open up, Mei said.
Political, Not Investment Problem
In mature markets, investors can invest in private real estate funds, public real estate investment trusts, or bond funds that invest in mortgage-related investments, he said.
In China, a changing regulatory environment as the government clamps down on property investment poses risks to development of products based on real estate. Only in December did China Construction Bank (0939.HK) issue the country's first mortgage-backed securities as part of the country's pilot securitization program.
"There is a tremendous lack of long-term conservative investment products in China," Mei said.
On the other side, lack of long-term financing channels for developers means they tend to work with a short-term horizon, he said.
Mei pointed out the "confluence of all these forces" including the global liquidity situation and expectation for inflation all help drive speculative behavior into the local property market and create current problems.
"From the government's perspective, the structural problems, especially the imbalance between supply and demand, especially on the (low income housing end), create political pressures to address those issues," he said.
The potential for social instability if basic housing needs are not met for 1.3 billion Chinese means this is more a political problem rather than an investment problem, said Mei.
Effective Thursday, China raised housing down payment requirements, introduced transaction taxes on properties sold within five years and restricted bank loans to property developers in bid to quell speculation and ease growing social tensions over soaring prices.
Among the measures, the purchase of an apartment of more than 90 square meters in size, usually luxury apartments, is now subject to an increased 30% requirement for down payment. But the down payment for apartments below that size will stay at the current 20%, signaling the government aims to make purchases for low income housing easier.
But Mei said the government can go further and reduce the down payment for low-income housing to 5% and set up a government agency specifically to look at and handle mortgage insurance for low-income housing.
(c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
