China real estate land supply drops 7.8 per cent

China's real estate land supply dropped 7.8 percent on the year to stand at 71,000 hectares in the first nine months in 2016, the Ministry of Land and Resources said. The residential land supply component slipped 8.4 percent to only 47,900 hectares, financial magazine Yicai reported, citing information from the ministry. China's real estate land supply has been on a gradual decline since 2013's peak of 203,200 hectares, with the figure dropping to 120,000 hectares in 2015 and 151,000 hectares in 2014, according to Yicai. China will stick to differentiated housing policies for different cities and adopt macro-level control accordingly to ensure the housing market is stable, Yicai said, quoting an unidentified ministry official. However, it has become more difficult to "adjust and control the market" as the real estate land market has apparently diverged, said Wang Jianwu, a researcher at the ministry's real estate registration centre, state radio reported.