China Local Land Sales Fall Just as Beijing Calls for Spending

(Bloomberg) — Revenue from land sales for most Chinese local governments fell in 2021, damaging budgets just as Beijing calls for faster spending to counteract a housing-market slowdown and pull the economy out of a downturn.

Thirteen of China’s 31 provinces recorded declines of more than 20% in income from selling land-use rights in 2021 from a year earlier, Tianfeng Securities Co. analysts including Sun Binbin wrote Wednesday in a note. That includes Xinjiang, Heilongjiang and the two other provinces in the northeast, and Shanxi in the north.