COUNTRY Garden, China’s top property developer by sales, will slow the pace of new projects to focus on safety and quality, as core profit in the first six months hit a record high on stronger revenue and margins. Responding to safety concerns after a series of incidents at its building sites, Country Garden’s president and CEO Mo Bin said Tuesday the firm will concentrate improving controls and management at existing projects. “Safety and quality is our first priority,” Mo told a conference call with reporters. Major domestic developers, including Country Garden, Longfor Group and China Resources Land, reported record profits for the first six months of the year Tuesday. Hong Kong-listed Country Garden said its core profit, which excluded revaluation gains and non-recurring items, rose 80 percent to 13 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion), a record first half profit. The company said it would “overhaul” its management systems, boost supervision and training and increase the use of technology to reduce manual labor at its project sites. The developer halted all projects in China for a few days last month to conduct inspections following the deaths of six people at a site in eastern Anhui Province. The halt had no impact on the firm’s full-year new-start and completion targets for its projects. After expanding aggressively into small cities in recent years, Country Garden has said it would more selective in the future and only expand when a market showed strong demand. (SD-Agencies) |