BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- Real estate investment growth in China is likely to slow substantially this year, and total investment may even fall from last year's level, an industry association said Monday.
Real estate investment contributed approximately 1.8 percentage points to China's gross domestic product growth in 2008, said Liu Lin, a researcher at the industry association. If real estate investment shrinks this year, its contribution to GDP growth will be negative, she added.
Property prices are likely to keep falling in the first half but will likely stabilize in the third quarter as macroeconomic conditions improve, the China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce said in an annual report.
"We don't see a rebound in the property market in the short term," CRECC Vice Director Ren Zhiqiang, who is also president of property developer Beijing Hua Yuan Group, told reporters at a press briefing. "It will be six to nine months or even longer before the market rebounds."
Property prices in 70 of China's large and medium cities fell 0.4% in December from a year earlier, the first decline since the government started issuing the data in 2005, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.
