New Policies to Revive the Chinese Property Market
Karen Tang, Hallam Chow, John Hartley, Xiaoming Li, Steve Payne, Rosanna Chow

DOWNLOAD PDF: New Policies to Revive the Chinese Property Market

On 22 October 2008, the Chinese central banking authorities rolled out a series of new policies to boost the Chinese property sector which is starting to feel the effects of the global economic downturn. In recent weeks, Chinese municipal government authorities also have introduced similar measures to help revitalize the local property markets. These new incentives include:

• lowering the down payment for an initial purchase of ordinary personal housing;
• cutting the interest rates for loans made under the personal housing accumulation fund;
• reducing the floor interest rates for personal housing loans;
• exempting stamp duty and land value-added tax on residential property sales by individuals;
• reducing the deed tax for an individual’s purchase of his or her first personal housing property;
• increasing the maximum loan amount available for individuals’ purchases of residential properties under the personal housing accumulation fund; and
• extending government subsidies of up to 1% of purchase price to individual purchasers.

This alert provides a brief overview of these new policies.