IT’S mission accomplished for China’s economy.

    China is confident it will achieve its major full-year targets and tasks, Premier Li Keqiang said at a seminar in Beijing, according to domestic media reports late Tuesday. China should stabilize and improve macro policies and will expand aggregate demand moderately, Li said. He called for steadying employment and promoting innovation.

    The economy’s stabilization this year has come on the back of easy monetary policy and a ramp up in fiscal support, ensuring the government’s full-year growth target of 6.5 percent to 7 percent will be met. Policymakers are now turning attention to reining in excesses spurred by such stimulus, including debt risks and surging home prices in major cities.

    “With real economic activity now better stabilized in general and the government still concerned about the need for financial and macro risk controls, October’s property strength may induce a further tightening of property policies,” economists led by Wang Tao at UBS Group AG in Hong Kong wrote in a recent note. “We see no change to benchmark interest rates through 2018.”

    Authorities may allow slightly more yuan depreciation as the U.S. dollar strengthens post election, she wrote.

    A weakening yuan, while offering no sustained boost to exporters in the face of tepid global demand, has at least cushioned the blow on their local currency earnings. Meantime, four years of factory deflation has also abated, boosting industrial profits.(SD-Agencies)

    20 cities adopt restrictive home purchase rules

    MORE than 20 cities in China have adopted restrictive home purchase measures, including higher mortgage down payments and an immediate ban on second-home purchases, to prevent speculative buying that could further fuel price bubbles.

    Shenzhen and Wuhan are the latest to step up measures to rein in their red-hot housing market with fresh curbs on borrowings and purchasing of multiple homes.

    The down payment level for Shenzhen’s second-home buyers who borrow from the housing provident fund has been raised to 70 percent from 30 percent.

    Wuhan, the capital of central Hubei Province, also strengthened restrictive measures by requiring higher down payment and banning third-home purchases, the Wuhan Housing Security and Management Bureau announced in a notice late Monday.

    The city’s first-home buyers have to pay a 30 percent down payment as a condition for borrowing from banks, compared with 25 percent under previous rules.

    Residents who own two or more homes are not allowed to purchase more, while previously they were only banned from borrowing from banks.

    Non-resident first-home buyers must also show proof of paying at least two consecutive years of social insurance or tax in the city.

    The new rules in both cities were effective from Nov. 15.

    (SD-Agencies)