China’s Citic Capital Raises $683 Million Fund for Retail Property — and more of Today’s China Real Estate Links | June 18, 2013

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

• China’s Citic Capital Raises $683 Million Fund for Retail Property

  Chinese asset management firm Citic Capital Holdings Ltd. has raised $683 million for a fund focusing on retail properties in China, underscoring continued investor enthusiasm for the country’s real estate sector.

  Citic Capital has already invested $250 million of the new fund into three projects, including a shopping mall in Changsha in China’s Hunan province, another in Hefei in Anhui province and a third in Shanghai, according to its press release Monday. Construction on the latter two projects will start in the third quarter.

• Beijing Tightens Rules as Sales Percolate Up Through Govt Policies

  Beijing is tightening rules for real estate projects as local officials seek new measures to contain a rebound in home prices.
  The city will require non-residential projects and residential developments bigger than an average 140 square meters (1,506 square feet) to meet requirements on construction progress before applying for presale permits, the local housing bureau said June 14. The move follows a June 6 rule ordering presale proceeds to be managed by banks and paid to developers gradually as construction progresses.

• Market insiders expect China’s new home sales to rise steadily

  Real estate market insiders expected China’s new home sales to trend steadily up over the course of this year as major listed developers posted robust sales in May.

  The real estate giant China Vanke Co. said in a report in early June that it reaped a sales revenue of 70.18 billion yuan (11.39 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-May period, up 42.6 percent year on year.

  Evergrande Real Estate Group also sold about 1.3 million square meters of housing for a total of 34.19 billion yuan, completing a reasonable share of its 100-billion sales target for the year, according to Saturday’s edition of China Times.

• Guangdong town receives firm wrist slap for faking data

  A town in South China’s Guangdong Province was criticized Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for falsification of statistical data, the official statistical agency’s latest move to improve the accuracy of statistical data.

  Following up on tip-offs from the public, the NBS found the town of Henglan in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province had falsified statistical data for industrial enterprises, the bureau said in a bulletin posted on its website Friday.

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