BNBM banks on rural residences

Decision, decisions. With the Chinese real estate market facing its most serious period of uncertainty of recent years, who would want to be Song Zhiping, chairman of the China National Building Material Group Corp (CNBM) and the Beijing New Building Material (BNBM) Group? With prices tumbling all around him, should the decision-maker behind China's largest manufacturer of packaged housing opt to go up or down market? Villas or flat-pack terraces?

BNBM, a subsidiary of the State-owned China National Building Material Group Corp, does not build skyscrapers or sprawling office complexes, instead they specialize in low-tier houses and apartments, where the constituent parts are manufactured in the company's mass production lines and subsequently assembled at the construction site.

Speaking exclusively to the China Daily, Song said: "Only two kinds of people in China call upon our services - the very rich and the very poor."