Land sales boom in 10 key cities

Fifteen plots of land were auctioned in Beijing in February up to Monday, fetching 12.7 billion yuan ($2.01 billion) in revenue, with the capital city selling 36.9 billion yuan worth of land in the first two months of the year, data from Centaline China Property Research show.

Last year, Beijing sold plots worth 64.8 billion yuan, meaning land revenue in the first two months of this year has exceeded half that for 2012.

Other key cities have also seen burgeoning land sales this year. Figures from the China Index Academy, a research institute under SouFun Holdings Ltd, show China's 10 major cities sold land worth 120.6 billion yuan from Jan 1 to Feb 26, up from 66 billion yuan for the same period last year.

In January, 26.02 million square meters of land were sold in the 10 cities, up 77 percent year-on-year and generating 56.2 billion yuan in land revenue, a 263 percent year-on-year increase, according to statistics from the Shanghai E-house China R&D Institute, a research group specializing in China's property market.

Zhang Dawei, head of Centaline's research department, said the land-bidding spree has been fueled by a recent boom in residential sales, while an easing financing environment, and capital pressure, also encouraged developers to stockpile more land, the National Business Daily reported on Wednesday.