A pedestrian crosses a road in front of residential buildings in Beijing, China.
Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images
China’s housing minister is set to hold a press conference to discuss promoting the steady and healthy development of the property market, according to the State Council Information Office.
The briefing is expected to begin at 10 a.m. local time, with Ni Hong, China’s minister of housing and urban-rural development, speaking alongside officials from the central bank, Ministry of Finance and the National Financial Regulatory Administration.
The event marks the latest in a series of high-level economic policy briefings, which started late September. Investors have seen recent stimulus announcements as a signal that Beijing is finally stepping in to stimulate slowing economic growth and its struggling property sector.
Over the weekend, officials from China’s Ministry of Finance announced that they would allow local governments to issue more special bonds for land purchases and allow affordable housing subsidies to be used for existing housing inventory, instead of only new construction.
Chinese property stocks soared on Monday off the news, with the Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index rising over 2%. Real estate was also the leading gainer in Mainland China’s CSI 300, advancing by nearly 5%. The HSMPI had lost more than 80% from its peak in January 2020.
Throughout the week, Chinese stocks overall have been volatile as investors diverged in their opinions on whether the government would deliver the stimulus needed to boost the economy. Ahead of the press conference Thursday, the market rallied again, indicating some hope that China would soon deliver some concrete stimulus policies.
But some analysts weren’t so sure. Bruce Pang, chief economist and head of research of Greater China at JLL, said that he wasn’t expecting a policy surprise to come from Thursday’s briefing.
“Policymakers are taking a more pragmatic stance on the property sector, expecting the sector to be neither a driver or a dragger of economic growth,” he said, but a “stabilizer” going forward.
In late September, Pan Gongsheng, the People Bank of China governor announced a 50 basis-point cut to the amount of cash banks need to have on hand, known as the reserve requirement ratio or RRR. He also lowered the minimum down payment for second-home loans nationwide from 25 percent to 15 percent.
Days later, officials in a top-level meeting, chaired by Chinese president Xi Jinping, pledged to “halt the real estate market decline and spur a stable recovery.”
— CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this story.
This is a developing story. Please check back later for updates.
