China’s home de-stocking push to bring little cheer

CHINA’S efforts to clear massive inventory by turning unsold homes into affordable housing are unlikely to help cash-strapped developers due to the programme’s limited size and potentially low prices, analysts and developers say.

As part of a support package for the crisis-hit property sector, Beijing announced last month a plan for a 300 billion yuan (US$41bil) lending facility, which could result in 500 billion yuan worth of bank financing for local state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to purchase completed and unsold homes.