COUNTRY Garden Holdings Co., one of China’s most aggressive property developers, said yesterday annual core profit doubled to a record on robust sales and higher margins.

Despite the government’s efforts to cool a heated market, many of China’s major property developers are expected to book their best-ever annual profits for 2017, benefiting as they speed up their pace of development and from their bigger size as M&A activity makes the market less fragmented.

Country Garden’s core profit, which excludes non-recurring income and revaluation gains, grew to 24.7 billion yuan (US$3.9 billion).

Net profit rose 126 percent to 26.1 billion yuan, while revenue was up 48 percent at 226.9 billion yuan.

Based in Guangdong Province, Country Garden ranks as China’s top property developer by sales, although those sales figures include total revenue garnered at joint ventures.

The developer said that it expected the government would promote the development of long-term property leasing.

Country Garden, which set up a long-term property leasing department late last year, said it had 3,000 such apartments were under construction in top-tier cities in 2017. It aims to build 1 million apartments to be leased in three years.

Although, China introduced more tailored housing measures in cities last year in a bid to control home prices, property development has not let up.

Real estate investment in China over the first two months of 2018 grew at it strongest pace since 2015, with smaller developers rushing to roll out new projects amid a government crackdown on risky financing.

New home prices, excluding government-subsidized housing, gained in 44 of 70 cities tracked, compared with 52 in January, official figures showed Monday. Prices fell in 16 cities from the previous month and were unchanged in 10. (SD-Agencies)