(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-21 13:37

China Central Television's "Economic Half-Hour" program recently featured the story of a man named Fu Yongde whose identity was allegedly stolen by a property development company in order to obtain a fraudulent $138,000 loan for nonexistent property.

Still, huge inflows of investment kept the market lively until late last year.

Since then, trading volumes have dropped by nearly three-quarters compared with a year earlier, said Zhang Min, head of corporate planning at Chuanghui's headquarters in Shenzhen.

"The government's credit tightening has really affected the real estate market," Zhang said. "The entire industry is in crisis."

Zhang said his company had cut the number of outlets by 1,100 to 700 after an expansion that its chairman, Lin Fenghui, described in an online interview on Sohu.com as "too fast and too big."

Zhang said Chuanghui was selling some branches to help weather its "temporary financial difficulty," but denied it is facing bankruptcy.

"We are taking effective measures to solve the problem," Zhang said. "The money customers left with us will be safe."

 

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