Carlyle Buys 49% Stake in Two Chinese Shopping Malls – and more of Today’s China Real Estate Links | May 30, 2013

Here is a list of the day’s latest China real estate news collected from around the web:

• Carlyle Buys 49% Stake in Two Chinese Shopping Malls on Demand

  Carlyle Group LP (CG), the world’s second-largest manager of alternative assets, bought a minority stake in two Chinese shopping malls, seeking to tap a retail property boom spurred by rising domestic consumption.

  A company advised by Carlyle’s Asia real estate group bought a 49 percent stake in Suzhou In-City Mall and Hangzhou Gudun In-City Mall in eastern China, both owned and operated by SZITIC Commercial Property Co., according to an e-mailed statement. The financial terms were not disclosed.

• Intercontinental Ruijin Hotel Opens in Shanghai

  A global hotel management brand, InterContinental Hotels Group celebrated its 30th anniversary in China with the opening of the InterContinental Shanghai Ruijin on May 28.

  Surrounded by intricately designed gardens, the Ruijin Hotel is the brand’s 200th in the Chinese market.

  Built by renovating a century-old state guesthouse, the hotel combines the glamour of Shanghai’s heyday with the top-notch accoutrements of a contemporary InterContinental property.

• China home prices expected to rise 8% this year

  China’s loose monetary policy and strong pentup housing demand will drive up home prices in 2013, but government cooling measures, including a wider trial programme to tax property owners, will keep the market from running away.

  A Reuters latest poll of 11 economists and property market analysts, conducted between May 2028, predicts an 8% rise in China’s house prices this year, followed by a 3% increase in 2014.

• Migrant workers earn more than college grads

  Migrant workers make more money than fresh college graduates, 21st Century Business Herald reported on Tuesday.

  Migrant workers earned an average monthly salary of 2,290 yuan ($374.19) at the end of 2012, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

  In contrast, the starting salaries of 69 percent of new college graduates in June 2012 were less than 2,000 yuan, according to a survey by My China Occupations Skills, an education data consultancy.

• China’s urban population surpassed rural by 2011

  China’s urban population exceeded the number of rural dwellers for the first time in history by 2011, and 75 percent of Chinese will live in cities by 2034, according to a National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report.

  According to official figures, 52.6 percent of the total population on the Chinese mainland resides in cities, way ahead of neighbor India (31 percent) but lagging far behind South Korea’s 83 percent. From 2010 to 2025, 300 million Chinese now living in rural areas, a number equivalent to Malaysia’s entire population, will migrate to cities, the report estimates.

• China Overseas Land buys back project shares for USD362.7 million

  China Overseas Land & Investment (COLI), through its indirect wholly owned unit China Overseas (Zhong Guo), bought back about 30% interest in three Chinese property projects from Harmony China Real Estate Fund, L.P. for a combined US$362.7 million, according to a regulatory filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange late Tuesday.

  “The acquisition is in line with the group’s overall development strategy,” COLI, one of China’s largest property developers, said in the filing.

This list is updated daily, so tune in again tomorrow for more up to date information.