China not headed for Japan-style property bust, says minister
Chen Zhenggao talks down the possibility of a sudden real estate slump amid a rebound in prices in country’s top-tier cities
China’s housing bubbles are controllable and the country’s property market is not on track for a Japan-style boom and bust.
That was the view of Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Chen Zhenggao, who mounted a strong defence of the country’s frothy real estate market on Tuesday.
He said action by the authorities and the national urbanisation drive could be instrumental in helping China avoid a sudden collapse in housing prices that battered Japan decades ago.
“It’s a different era now,” Chen said on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
“The two markets [of China and Japan] cannot be compared because they are at different stages of economic development, have different levels of urbanisation, and have different macroeconomic policies.”
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Japan’s stock market plummeted in 1990 after a period of inflated real estate and stock prices, resulting in a prolonged slump in the island nation’s economy.