China’s State-owned Asset Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) told state-owned enterprises (SOEs) dabbling in real estate to prepare to exit the market, state media reported. With the exception of 16 SOEs which are pure real estate developers, 78 other enterprises under SASAC supervision are to speed up restructuring and withdraw from the property sector. The move is an attempt to curb rising property prices, which has been aggravated in some cases by the willingness of SOEs to bid for prime projects, but analysts question whether the move will have much impact on prices. Meng Qi, a market analyst with brokerage Century 21 said that the SOEs under SASAC are not major real estate players anyway: He pointed out that SOEs’ income from real estate only accounted for 5% of the national total.
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