Developers raise property sales targets

A number of Chinese property developers have raised their sales targets for the year after achieving robust sales growth in the first half — despite tightening housing policy.

Country Garden raised its annual sales target from 400 billion yuan ($60 billion) to 500 billion yuan, growing 25 percent, according to its 2017 interim results. The Foshan, Guangdong province-based property developer achieved 288.9 billion yuan in contracted sales as of the end of June, surging 131 percent year-on-year.

“We have raised our annual sales target to 500 billion yuan as we believe it is in line with the actual situation of the company’s development,” said Mo Bin, president and executive director of Country Garden.

“We don’t exclude the possibility of surpassing the goal if we perform better in the second half.”

Guangzhou-based R&F Properties raised its sales target for 2017 to 80 billion yuan from the previous 73 billion yuan. Sales value of the company rose 30 percent year-on-year to 38.8 billion yuan in the first half.

Longfor Properties also reset its annual sales target from 110 billion yuan to 150 billion yuan, after the company achieved 92.6 billion yuan in contracted sales in the first six months of this year, soaring 140 percent on a yearly basis.

Despite the growth, property developers are still expressing caution about the market, saying government tightening policy may have a bigger-thanexpected impact and affect growth rates in the second half.

Since last year, dozens of Chinese cities have introduced restrictive measures to rein in growing home prices.