HONG KONG : Chinese property shares jumped on Thursday after the country's biggest commercial banks agreed to provide at least $38 billion in fresh credit lines to cash-strapped developers, adding to recent regulatory support measures to revive their business.
Banks are making efforts to follow a regulatory call to bolster the sector, but most of the new loans will go to state-backed developers, Shujin Chen, analyst with Jefferies, said in a note issued on Thursday.Beijing has been stepping up measures in recent weeks to support the property sector, which has been hit by a debt crisis.
Several developers have defaulted on their offshore debt obligations over the past year, fuelling a sector-wide downturn that has weighed on the world's second-largest economy.