To meet the reasonable financing needs of Chinese property developers of different ownership systems on a fair basis, Hainan Province referred the first batch of 31 real estate financing “whitelist” projects as of last Wednesday (6th), of which 17 projects completed the examination and approval and signed loan contracts, and the aggregate balance of RMB1.7 billion was disbursed for financing, China Real Estate Business quoted Hainan’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) and National Administration of Financial Regulation (NAFR).
But the success of the latest financing support measure could be stymied by banks’ reluctance to extend fresh credit to the struggling real estate firms due to worries about the impact on their asset quality, developers, bankers and analysts say.
A corporate lending manager at a joint-stock bank said banks would prioritise risk controls under the new “Project Whitelist” mechanism rather than take “significant bad debts” onto their books.
The preferred residential projects on the whitelists to receive financing support are expected to be mostly those that are under development by state-owned enterprises, considered a safer bet due to their deep pockets, said the manager, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to media.
Real estate development loans in the world’s second-largest economy grew 1.5% year-on-year to 12.88 trillion yuan ($1.8 trillion) at the end of 2023, versus 3.7% a year ago, data from the central bank showed.