China will increase affordable-housing construction and support the commercial real-estate market to better meet reasonable demand of home buyers, the ruling Communist Party's top decision-making body said Monday.
In a meeting chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Politburo said it would boost the healthy development and a positive cycle of the nation's real-estate sector, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
The meeting didn't offer further details of the property policy that has been in the spotlight for the market after the Chinese authorities announced it last week in a bid to help the indebted China Evergrande Group deal with its crisis.
The Politburo meeting also dropped the mention of its rhetoric--housing is for living in, not speculation--which was used by President Xi and later repeated by government bodies at all levels to show the government's stance regarding the property sector.
The meeting "indicates the government may loosen policies in the property sector," Zhiwei Zhang, an economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said in a note Monday.
Some analysts have recently anticipated Beijing will shift its policy to be more supportive for economic growth, as the property slump and Covid-19 resurgence exerted more pressure on the nation's growth.
China's central bank said Monday that it would lower banks' reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage point, releasing 1.2 trillion yuan ($188.3 billion) of liquidity to the financial sector.
The Politburo said in Monday's meeting that the government would keep the economy running at a reasonable pace next year to welcome the holding of the Party's Congress. The meeting also said to expand effective investment and help consumption continue to recover in 2022.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-06-21 0649ET
