Property is main China urban household asset-survey

BEIJING: Property accounts for 73.4% of the assets held by urban Chinese, according to a survey released on Friday, Sept 17.

Beijing'a Tsinghua University questioned 5,200 households in 24 major Chinese cities.

They had average assets at the end of 2009 of 406,536 yuan ($188,000) and average income last year of 50,997 yuan.

Eighty-five percent of respondents owned their apartment.

Only 17.7% of the households polled have invested in the stock market, with 13.3% owning mutual funds.

Most respondents to the survey, sponsored by a Citigroup foundation, said they regarded property as the investment with the lowest risk.

Only one in five of the respondents said they had debts. The leverage ratio of the entire sample was just 4%.