real estate Photo:VCG

Former deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), He Keng, described the housing market oversupply in Chinese cities as "even (China's) 1.4 billion people cannot fill all those vacant houses." 

He made the remark during a speech to the 2023 China Real Economy Development Conference held on Saturday, and he called for business transformation of China's real estate companies.

He expressed his own concern about the real estate sector. With an oversupply of housing, it is possible that 1.4 billion people can't fill all these houses in China, though the exact numbers of vacant housing remain unclear, he noted.

It is unwise to vigorously develop real estate as there are still many vacant apartments in China, suggesting the developers transform their businesses as quickly as possible to adapt to this new situation, He said.

According to a survey done by Beike Research Institute in August 2022, the average vacancy rate of housing in 28 large and medium-sized cities in China is 12 percent, with Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai reporting a vacancy rate of less than 7 percent.

Recently, Chinese cities have worked out multiple pro-growth policies to revive the real estate sector to boost the overall economy. 

On Wednesday, Guangzhou municipality announced new measures to relax policy curbs on house purchases in the city's four major districts, follow the steps of other major Chinese cities including Nanjing, Qingdao, Shenyang, Wuhan, Jinan and Zhengzhou. 

On September 15, China revealed the economic data for August, showing a better-than-expected economic recovery, as the NBS reported a 4.5 percent growth in value-added industrial output and 4.6 percent increase in retail sales, all exceeds numbers of previous month. 

"Arresting the decline in real estate capital investment is important for the economy," said Zhou Maohua, an economist at Everbright Bank.