No land auction bids for idle developers

BEIJING: The Ministry of Land and Resources will block some companies from buying more land in coming auctions after a number of their sites went undeveloped, in some cases for up to eight years.

In a list on the ministry's website, 26 undeveloped sites on the mainland were named along with the firms and parent companies that own them.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec) was one company on the list. In Beijing, Sinopec's Beijing Jing Tian Real Estate Development holds three residential sites, with an area of 26.86 hectares, and building on the sites should have started in September 2004, the ministry said.

Also identified were five plots in Beijing, five in Shanghai, two in Jiangsu and others spread around Wuxi in Wuhan and Changsha in Hunan.

Building work on the Shanghai sites should have begun between 2002 and 2004.

In September, the central government announced rules to curb the hoarding of land by developers in its efforts to cool speculation in the nation's property sector.

Developers will be banned from bidding on properties if they have left the land idle for more than a year, illegally transferred lands, or developed land in breach of agreements.

Separately, Shanghai municipal government last Thursday, Dec 30 fetched 2.63 billion yuan (RM1.22 billion) from the last auction of the year last Thursday.

Greenland Group won a residential site along Jinnan Road in Jiading district for 1.93 billion yuan or 9,774 yuan per square metre.

Early this year, the site sold for 2.4 billion yuan but the government took back the plot after the winning bidder reneged on the deal.

Another site in Baian Road, Jiading district sold for 701 million yuan.

Meanwhile, Guangzhou R&F Properties said it acquired a residential-commercial site in Huizhou, Guangdong for 169 million yuan. — SCMP