Despite the increased buying, nationwide housing prices remained in a downward trend, a pattern that&rsquo s been in place since September.

• PHOTOS

The US$3.4 billion (S$4.3 billion) future Raffles City Chongqing is designed by Moshe Safdie, the world-renowned architect behind the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

Apart from a mall, offices and residences, it will also be a transport hub, with a ferry terminal, cruise centre, metro and bus stations when completed in 2018.

Chongqing is one of China' s mega-cities, and an industrial and commercial base with a population of 31 million.

CapitaLand China CEO Jason Leow said he believes in the long-term potential of the Chongqing property market. &ldquo Chongqing is now putting a lot of infrastructure in place, whether it' s the new airport, new ports, new bridges, you&rsquo re seeing a lot of construction activities everywher. With the ' go west' policy by the Chinese government, we expect a lot of economic activities to drive Chongqing,&rdquo he said. 

Also with Mr Teo is Social and Family Development Minister Chan Chun Sing. The delegation also visited the Chongqing Planning Exhibition Gallery and the Liangjiang New Area to learn more about the city' s urban and infrastructural development.

MAMTA BADKAR    MARKETS    JUL. 1, 2014, 1:17 AM

 

Yujiapu, in China& rsquo s Tianjin Binhai New Area, was modeled on Manhattan and expected to become the financial center of the world.   

But it languishes as many    wasteful Chinese ghost cities  have. 

At one point it was reported that theJuilliard School  had signed an agreement to set up an institute in Yujiapu. And there were plans for a Rockefeller and Lincoln Center as well. 

But construction in this Manhattan hopeful has ground to a halt. 

According to    Bloomberg& rsquo s  Steve Engle and Xin Zhou, a Tianjin local-government financing vehicle (LGFV) saw its revenue fall 68% last year and about a third of its debt will mature this year. 

Michael Hart, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc told Bloomberg that the local government can force some state owned enterprises (SOEs) to be the first to occupy the abandoned buildings, but that it won& rsquo t be easy to do. 

& ldquo It was a failure before it even started,& rdquo Gao Fei of Centaline Property told Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for    Marketplace/American Public Media. & ldquo The most important thing for Tianjin& rsquo s government has always been a high GDP rate. That means the government has to spend a lot of money on huge projects like this one. In China, these kinds of wasteful projects are everywhere.& rdquo 

Schmitz previously told Business Insider that the ghost cities don& rsquo t neatly fit into China& rsquo s urbanization plans. 

Here are some images of Yujiapu from Bloomberg& rsquo s Engle. 

 

& ldquo This 1,200 room five-star Country Garden Phoenix hotel is nothing but a shell,& rdquo says Engle. The project was expected to be finished in 2012. 

 

It was hoped that private developers would step in but they have been slow to join. 

 

The slowing economy has only made the Chinese ghost city problem worse. 

 

& ldquo Construction work on Yujiapu, planned to be & ldquo the financial capital of the world,& rdquo has been largely put on hold,& rdquo according to Schmitz.

Laborers seen a construction site of a residential compound in 2012, are largely missing now. 

 

This image from 2012 shows a proliferation of cranes when construction in Yujiapu was still booming. 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28077154

UK interest rates ' could return to 5% in long term'

Interest rates could rise to 5% in " the very long term" , a senior Bank of England figure has said.

Sir Charlie Bean, deputy governor for monetary policy, called it " reasonable" to think rates would return to pre-recession levels in 10 years or more.

The rate was cut when the financial crisis hit the UK from 2007, and it hasremained at 0.5% since March 2009.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said it could now rise, possibly to a " new normal" of 2.5% by 2017. ' Gradual and limited'

In an  interview with Sky News, Sir Charlie, who will step down from his Bank of England role on Monday, was asked if the interest rate could return to 5% within 10 years.

" That may well be so. I wouldn' t want to say it will be back there in 10 years," he said.

" It might be reasonable to think that in that very long term you would go back to 5% but it' s probably quite a long way down the road."

He also said that in the run-up to the financial crisis, economists were " not sufficiently cognisant of the risks building up" .

But he said the economy was now far more resilient than when he arrived at the central bank in 2000.

On Friday Mr Carney said that any interest rate rises in the coming years would be done in a " gradual and limited fashion" .

He said UK household debt levels had altered the financial system, and increasing interest rates would have more impact on household spending than in the past. Slow rise

In a keynote speech earlier this month, Mr Carney hinted that the Bank may raise interest rates later this year. Markets had previously expected the move to come in the first half of next year.

The governor also reiterated his belief that the timing of the first rise was less important than the speed at which subsequent increases were made.

He told the BBC on Friday that when the time came, rates would rise more slowly than they have the past. Rates would rise in " a gradual and limited fashion" , he said.

The Bank is trying to give businesses and homeowners a better insight into interest rate movements to help them plan better for the future. This policy of forward guidance was introduced by Mr Carney when he joined the Bank last year.

27 Jun 2014 11:44

Unsold homes big drag on developers' coffers

Punishing fees seen incentivising some to reprice projects to move sales in near term

The Business Times  - June 7, 2014 
By: Lynette Khoo