Land sales hit record high in first 3 quarters

Land sales in Chinese cities soared to a record high in the first three quarters of the year as the property market warmed up and the effect of government regulations faded away.

Data from the China Index Academy, a private database of the country's property market, showed land transfer fees in 300 major Chinese cities added up to 2.11 trillion yuan ($346 billion) by the end of September this year.

This was up 70 percent from the 1.23 trillion yuan recorded during the same period last year. At the same time, the total supply of land parcels increased 8.9 percent year-on-year to 1.18 billion square meters, including 430 million sq m for residential land.