Ren Zhiqiang, chairman of Beijing-based Huayuan Property
I am concerned that China is at risk of more serious economic slowdown than people have anticipated. From the perspective of the property sector, we are likely to see the pace of developers' input into new projects drop rapidly in the coming months. Many property developers have decided to stop investing in new projects, and this is actually a dangerous signal for the nation's overall investment. Annual growth of fixed-asset investments may drop significantly and the statistics so far have not reflected developers' mood following the government's tightening measures.
Therefore, if the government does not relax its clampdown measures, I expect China's economic growth might fall below 8 percent sometime this year due to slumping investment.