City property prices in monthly surge

Louis Kuijs, an economist with RBS, believes the end may be in sight for surging prices and a period of stability is approaching.

A report by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said that developers were likely to have a reasonably good year.

Sino-Ocean Land, a Hong Kong-listed property developer, set its sales target for 2013 at 35 billion yuan ($5.6 billion), up 15 percent year-on-year.

"We believe the new policies from the government will have a huge impact on the market in the short term, but we didn't change our sales target because of that. We will invest more in self-use products and commercial properties," said Li Ming, president of Sino-Ocean Land.

China Overseas Land & Investment posted on Monday a 21.1 percent rise in 2012 net profit to 15.16 billion yuan and said it was targeting property sales of no less than 80 billion yuan in 2013.

Longfor, a Hong Kong-listed property developer, reported a net profit of 54 billion yuan in 2012, an increase of 19.4 percent year-on-year, the company said on Friday.

The company's chairman Wu Yajun said it will further boost its commitment to the commercial property business.

"Residential developers in China are starting to rebuild,'' said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Bei Fu.

"Financing conditions and liquidity have improved while refinancing risks have moderated. That's why we recently revised our outlook for the Chinese market to stable from negative. But smaller Chinese developers could still struggle to raise funds or overcome stiff competition."

huyuanyuan@chinadaily.com.cn