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China to curb excessive credit for property sector

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BEIJING: China will control rapid flows of bank credit to the property sector to help contain risks, the head of the country's top economic planning agency said yesterday.

This comes at a time when Beijing has pledged to contain debt and property market risks this year, following years of credit-fuelled expansion.

"We will control the excessive flow of credit into the real estate sector," Mr He Lifeng, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, told the China Development Forum in Beijing.

Large amounts of capital have entered the property market, driving up property prices in first-tier cities and some second-tier cities and pushing up costs for the real economy, he said.

Data on Saturday showed China's red-hot property market picked up pace last month, after a slowdown in price gains in the previous four months.

Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said earlier this month that government measures to cool rising house prices will slow mortgage growth to some degree, but housing loans will continue to grow at a relatively rapid pace.

Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli, speaking to the same forum, said: "China will continue to implement city-based policies to reduce real estate inventories in smaller third- and fourth-tier cities." - REUTERS

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