Real estate's contribution to GDP falling

The real estate sector's contribution to overall gross domestic product growth is likely to drop significantly in 2017, according to the head of the National Bureau of Statistics.

The real estate sector contributed 6.5 percent to overall GDP in China in 2016, or 7.8 percent to overall GPD growth in the country, according to Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS and deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Ning said that in 2017 the financial authorities would rigorously implement the policy that housing is for housing, not for speculating, and enable the real estate market to develop in a healthy and stable manner.

"The construction sector and the real economy part of the property market are pillars of the country's economic growth and they are important for meeting mass housing demand," Ning said.

"We can well handle the situation that some real estate market benchmarks are diverging in cities, and be secure that real estate is meeting people's demand while playing its role in economic growth," he added.

Investment in real estate development in 2016 reached 10.258 trillion yuan ($1.492 trillion), a 6.9 percent year-on-year increase.

The volume of property sold last year reached 1.57 billion square meters, a 22.5 percent year-on-year growth, realizing total revenue of 11.76 billion yuan, for a 34.8 percent year-on-year increase.

The NBS, which held a news conference in Beijing on Friday, said that the trend of real estate development in the country was positive overall, but there was a high divergence between top-tier and lower-tier cities.

City-specific policies to curb speculation and prevent overheating in first-and-second-tier cities and reduce inventories in lower-tier cities have been working effectively, Ning said.