THE MARKETS

　　Housing Loans Surge

　　Loans in China’s real estate sector experienced steady growth as the housing market regainedvigor， data from People’s Bank of China showedon October 23.

　　By the end of September， financial institutions in China had lent 14.17 trillion yuan ($2.31trillion) to the property sector， up 19 percentyear on year， 0.9 percentage points faster than the growth at the end of June.

　　Outstanding loans for property development amounted to 3.43 trillion yuan ($563.9billion) as of the end of September， with ayear-on-year increase of 14.9 percent， while individual housing loans jumped 21.2 percent to9.47 trillion yuan ($1.56 trillion).

　　Outstanding loans for affordable housing development amounted to 686.3 billion yuan($112.83 billion)， up 31.3 percent year on yearand accounting for 28.1 percent of the total.

　　Earnings Shoot Up

　　China Huarong Asset Management Co.Ltd.， the largest financial asset management corporationin China， reported profits of 10.32 billionyuan ($1.68 billion) in the first three quarters， up56.01 percent from the previous year.

　　Total profits from the past nine months amounted to 95.58 percent of the company’sannual profit target of 10.8 billion yuan ($1.76billion)， according to a report on its website.Once a state-owned debt clearer， China Huarong became a joint stock company withdiverse financial businesses in October 2012.The market-oriented transformation has seennet assets in its parent company grow by 9.45billion yuan ($1.55 billion)， up 32.01 percent bythe end of September.

　　China Huarong is expected to issue financialbonds worth 12 billion yuan ($1.97 billion)in early November and is now in the process ofintro ducing strategic investors. It is also considering setting up a branch in the Shanghai freetrade zone.