China banks slow lending to property developers

BEIJING: China's four biggest banks will severely limit lending to property developers for the rest of year, but will not completely suspend such loans, an industry newspaper reported on Tuesday, Nov 16.

The 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 China Securities Journal quoted several unidentified executives at the banks 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