In the first half this year, the area of land developed by real estate companies in Beijing jumped 1.3 times year on year to 1.964 million square meters, latest figures from the municipal statistics bureau show.

 

In the January-June period, the floor space of newly-started commercial house projects in the capital soared 47.2 percent to 13.08 million square meters, with that in residential house projects growing 36.1 percent to 8.03 million square meters.

 

Figures show investment used for Beijing's property development totaled 64 billion yuan (US$8 billion), up 20.8 percent, which was 12.7 percentage points higher than that in the same period last year.

 

Some 33.37 billion yuan of fund was used to build residential houses, up 31.1 percent year on year, while the fund used in office building development dropped 4.1 percent to 7.51 billion yuan.

 

Financial loans to Beijing's real estate industry totaled 33.95billion yuan during the period, jumping 40.1 percent year on year. This shows property developers depend heavily upon banks.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2006)