About 25% of Chinese real estate developers are likely to go out of business in the near future, said Zhang Shoujing of US ratings agency Stardard & Poor's (S&P), Economic Observer reported (in Chinese). Small developers will face an existential crisis as the government implements macro controls on the property market, Zhang said. The continued increase of lending interest rates has tightened the loan scale of these companies, and raised land and construction costs. Higher costs and risk will lead the sector to become more intergrated, said Zhang. An S&P report showed that the number of domestic developers has already dropped to 56,000, down from 59,000 in 2005.