(Yicai Global) June 11 -- Sales at China's property developers expanded in the first five months of the year, despite tighter market controls. Country Garden Holdings led the gains.

Sales at the top 100 developers jumped more than 33 percent to a total CNY3.47 trillion (USD536.3 billion) in the January to May period, from a year earlier, according to new figures from Chuancai Securities.
They increased by a record 17.7 percent last month.

Country Garden's sales soared 37 percent to CNY334.70 billion, while China Evergrande Group took in CNY254 billion, up 39 percent. China Vanke's sales rose 5 percent to CNY240 billion.

Market-dampening policies were introduced in more than 40 cities and 50 times just last month, setting a fresh record. These measures range from the cultivation of a housing rental market, stricter management of presale prices, tightening of purchase and sale restrictions, to the adjustment of the loan ratio for first and second properties, statistics from Centaline Group show.

The gap is also still widening between the biggest developers and those in the second tier, which includes Sunac China Holdings, Greenland Holdings and Poly Real Estate Group. Poly Real Estate's sales jumped 43 percent to CNY155 billion. Sunac's reached CNY150 billion.

Editor: Benedict Armour