China's real estate market up 69% in 2006: report

China's real estate market up 69% in 2006: report

Posted: 28 March 2007 1352 hrs


BEIJING: Transactions in China's real estate market surged 69 per cent in 2006, funded to a great extent by foreign investment, a leading research firm said Wednesday.

"There is increasingly more investment going into industrial property," Kenny Ho, a Shanghai-based head of research with Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate money management and services firm, told AFP.

Despite government measures to cool the real estate market, China's heady growth in the past and strong potential for the future have made it "a magnet for cross-border investors," said a report by the firm.

The Chinese economy saw its fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth in 2006, and the report forecast the country's 2007 growth at 9.5 per cent.

The report focused on the commercial real estate sector, which excludes multi-family residential real estate.

- AFP/yy