Local SOEs Slow Land Purchases After Finance Ministry’s Warning on Inflating Revenue

A dramatic reduction in the value of land purchases by state firms at an auction in the Jiangsu province trade hub of Wuxi this week suggests the noose could be tightening on the practice of local authorities using such auctions to cook their books.

It came after China’s Ministry of Finance banned local authorities from using their own state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to inflate their revenue from land sales, a practice many have relied on as the property crisis has eaten their revenue.