CCB chairman says has not heard of developer lending halt

BEIJING: China Construction Bank Corp (CCB) chairman Guo Shuqing said on Tuesday, Nov 16 that he has not heard of any lending halt to property developers by banks.

He made his comments at a Beijing forum amid a recent series of media reports that banks had halted or slowed lending to property developers, as Beijing sought to cool the overheated real estate market.

On Tuesday, the China Securities Journal reported that China's four biggest banks would severely limit lending to property developers for the rest of year, but would not completely suspend such loans.

A report said over the weekend that the country's top banks had used up their full-year quotas for lending to developers and were no longer issuing new loans.

The Journal quoted several unidentified bank executives as saying they were slowing the issuance of new credit, but not cutting it off altogether.

"Banks never officially announced that they would halt property lending, but the actual situation is little different from loan suspension," the newspaper paraphrased an unnamed bank executive as saying.

China has been trying to rein in property prices over the past half year after conditions in the sector began to look bubbly, and restrictions on lending to developers have been a major part of its approach. — Reuters