China's Ministry of Commerce listed a number of
measures to ensure control over direct investment of foreign fund in the real
estate sector, as the country strives to avoid international speculative money
to create bubbles in the sector.
Local commerce departments should strictly limit foreign investment in luxury
real estate, the ministry said in a document published on its website Wednesday.
It reiterated foreign investors need to establish a real estate company
before they can invest in real estate projects, and they should also get
approvals from relevant department to expand their business scope in order to
invest in new real estate projects.
The ministry said foreign investors are not allowed to bypass the above
regulations by investing in domestic real estate companies via acquisition or
changing the real controller of the domestic companies.
The ministry required local departments to report their approval of the
establishment of foreign-funded real estate companies to the ministry. The
ministry would investigate into the cases and deal with irregular cases.
The country has been trying to provide proper housing for the public by
building more economically affordable apartments and curbing the rapidly rising
housing prices.
However, the sales prices of new houses rose by around six percent year on
year in 70 mainland's cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen in the
first three months this year.
