} ?>
(Yicai Global) Sept. 5 -- Land sales across 300 major Chinese cities totaled CNY2.2 trillion (USD337 billion) during the first eight months, up 34 percent from a year ago, data from the China Index Academy shows.
Sales in the cities were USD4,786 last month, down 14 percent on the month and 4 percent on the year. Beijing topped the list with sales worth USD4.3 billion, the Economic Information Daily reported on Sept. 5. The average price per square meter continued to rise to USD412 in August, up 5 percent from July and 10 percent from the year-ago period, with second-tier cities reporting the largest increases.
The average premium rate was 29 percent last month, 6 percent less than the previous month and 29 percent less than the same period a year earlier. The substantial decline was mainly due to regulatory policies that hit the property markets in Beijing and Shanghai, analysts said.
China's top 50 property developers bought land worth USD228 billion in the first eight months, up 49 percent on the year, data from Centaline Property, a Hong Kong-based real estate agency, shows.
Real estate firms are still ramping up land purchases, said Zhang Dawei, a Centaline analyst. First- and second-tier cities are still subject to regulatory policies, but most companies nationwide reported upbeat sales in the first half and have ample funds, he added.