Major role for property finance regulation

Property financing is facing significant regulatory scrutiny, as policymakers are keen to tighten property controls and stabilize the financial industry, a measure to curb the fast rise of household debt, according to economists.

Raising the mortgage loan interest rate and tightening bank lending to real estate developers will be the major policy tools to secure the healthy development of the housing market in the short term, economists said on Thursday, at a seminar held by the National Institution for Finance and Development, a government-backed financial think tank under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Their comments came after China's top policymakers achieved a consensus at a high-level meeting in July that property should not be used as a measure to stimulate short-term economic growth.