Urbanisation ignites Country Garden sales

Mainland Chinese developer Country Garden posted a net profit of nearly RMB11.5 billion (MOP13.3 billion/US$1.7 billion) for the year of 2016, a 24.2 per cent increase from 2015, according to a filing by the company with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this week.
The company noted that growth in profits for the year was mainly attributable to the increase of home sales in first and second-tier cities in China, which represented 59 per cent of the company’s total property sales, while those from third and fourth-tier cities accounted for some 41 per cent.
Total contracted sales of the group surged 120 per cent to RMB308.84 billion for the year.
‘The adaptation to different markets and a more balanced land bank are the key to counteracting market fluctuations and enabling the Group to grow consistently,’ the company wrote in its annual results report.
Country Garden’s total revenue was up by nearly 35.2 per cent from a year earlier, at RMB153.09 billion, with the company noting that revenue from its property development segment rose 35.4 per cent year-on-year to nearly RMB148.2 billion.
In particular, revenue collected from property sales totalled RMB284.08 billion, representing a notable growth of 142.8 per cent year-on-year.
‘Revenue generated from property development maintained a growth as a result of the continuous growth of property contracted sales, strict construction management control and timely delivery of units in 2016,’ the company wrote.
The company reported that as at the end of 2016, it managed a contracted area of 210 million square metres throughout 223 cities in China across 27 provinces for nearly 1 million households of owners in total.

Forest city
The Guangzhou-based developer is the company behind the development of Forest City, a 20 square kilometre site development in a joint venture with the government of Johor State in Malaysia.
According to a report in South China Morning Post earlier this week, the company claimed it had recently shut down ‘dozens of sales offices across China for its mega Malaysian housing project Forest City’ due to the central government’s tightening of controls on capital outflow since the beginning of 2017.
Yet, the company noted in its annual results that the Forest City project ‘has achieved positive net cash flow, and its own capital is sufficient to support its own development.’