Opinion: Sustainable Framework Needed for China’s Property Market

China’s real estate industry has been a crucial driver of economic growth in the past two decades. In order to ascertain what housing policy measures are needed to improve the sector, we first need to fully appreciate the role the property market plays in the economy.

In 2020, the real estate sector accounted for 7% of the country’s GDP. But that number does not take into account the sector’s impact on driving upstream and downstream industries such as construction materials, furniture, and finance. In 2018, these related sectors accounted for 9.9% of GDP. Hence, in a broad sense, the real estate industry drives around 17% of the country’s GDP.