Reuters

China’s land sales slump for 4th month as property woes worsen

BEIJING (Reuters) -The Chinese government’s revenue from land sales slumped for a fourth month in October compared with year-ago levels, as cash-strapped developers moved cautiously on land buying after tighter regulatory curbs on new borrowing. The value of government land sales in October declined 13.14% from a year earlier to 573.7 billion yuan ($89.90 billion), after suffering a drop of 11.15% in September, according to Reuters calculations of data released by the finance ministry on Friday. Many developers including China Evergrande Group have grown desperately short of cash since authorities last year unveiled the “three red lines” – a policy of President Xi Jinping that imposes limits on liabilities-to-assets, net debt-to-equity, and cash-to-short-term borrowing ratios.