Developers make changes to beat tightening policy

BEIJING - China's property developers are diversifying their business lines, exploring different market segments and expanding to lower-tier cities to deal with the nation's rigorous real estate tightening policies, industry insiders said on Friday.

The government's constraints on the residential sector, and its increasing efforts to boost the supply of affordable housing, have seen a growing number of property firms redoubling their efforts to explore the commercial sector and spread their risks.

According to the China Index Academy, a property research institute, the planned floor space of the country's top 100 developers climbed by 5.92 percentage points for retail and by 0.91 percentage points for commercial properties in 2010 year-on-year, becoming a new engine for business.