This article was first published by Seeking Alpha on January 14, 2015
By Sarfaraz A. Khan. Research Asst. Iffat Zehra
China has been struggling to fix its sluggish economic growth rate. As per PwC's estimates, last year, the country's economy grew by 7.2% -- which looks great when compared against the U.S. as well as some of the developed European countries - for China, this growth rate is, in fact, the slowest since 1990. The sluggish growth is due, in part, to the soft demand from the property sector which has been dealing with excess supply.
Some of China's major cities, however, have been resilient in the face of the property market slowdown. Last week, a plot of more than 155,000 square meters of land in Beijing was sold at 22% premium to its opening price at record level of around $1.4 billion, as per the Beijing Land and Resources Bureau. Moreover, 60% of other major cities reported higher sales volume in December. The biggest increase occurred in the first-tier cities - such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou -- where volumes increased by 15% from the prior month and 45% from December-2013.