China less likely to ease property curbs

BEIJING - The government is not likely to release new tightening policies in the short-term to curb property prices, JP Morgan's chief China economist Zhu Haibin said Wednesday.

He said that given the faltering economic recovery and varied regional conditions, the possibility for the central government to release new tightening policies targeting the property market remains low.

It is more likely that local governments will work out their own property policies, with adjustments related to limited property sales and mortgage rates in cities with rising house prices, he added.

Sixty-five out of a statistical pool of 70 major Chinese cities saw new home prices increase month-on-month in May, down from 67 cities in April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

NBS data also showed that new home prices in 34 cities saw slower month-on-month rises compared with April. The cities of Fuzhou, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou and Chengdu saw price rises narrow by at least 0.6 percentage points.

Experts attributed the slowing price rises to the effects of recent property tightening measures.

The government's latest move to rein in prices was to release a guideline in early March urging local authorities to implement new price-cutting measures, including a 20-percent tax on capital gains from property sales. The move resulted in a second-hand property-purchasing spree in many cities.