CCB, BOC and China Everbright among Chinese lenders that have injected billions into ‘whitelist’ housing projects
- China Construction Bank has approved more than 20 billion yuan (US$2.78 billion) in finance for nearly a hundred projects, it said on Tuesday
- China Everbright Bank has approved 10.75 billion yuan in loans for 20 whitelist projects
Leading Chinese banks have injected billions of yuan into housing projects with the aim of financing the completion of pre-sold but yet-to-be-completed homes across the country, according to figures released by the lenders.
China Construction Bank (CCB), one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in the country, has handled more than 2,000 projects under the mechanism and approved nearly a hundred with pending disbursements of more than 20 billion yuan (US$2.78 billion), the bank said on Tuesday.
“Recently, the Beijing, Fujian, Anhui and Henan branches of CCB have realised the placement of five projects with an amount of nearly 3 billion yuan,” the bank said in a social media post.
The whitelists, launched by the housing ministry at the start of the year, ask provincial governments to recommend to banks local residential projects that are deemed financially sound and fit for further loan support. The whitelist screening criteria are based on projects instead of developers themselves.
Authorities have been urging provincial governments and banks to increase funding to struggling property developers, following the sharpest decline in nearly nine years in new home prices recorded in December.
