HARVEST TIME: A farmer picks oranges in Rongan County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on December 12 (HUANG GUOLIANG)

Home Prices

China's property sector continued to cool down in November, but the declines have been narrowing, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on December 18.

New home prices in 67 out of 70 major cities reported month-on-month drops in November, the NBS said, whereas prices in three cities remained flat.

New home prices in Beijing and Shanghai dropped by 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively, narrowing from 1.3-percent and 0.7-percent decreases a month earlier.

For existing homes, only 58 cities saw month-on-month price drops in November, compared with 64 in October. Six cities, mostly first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen, saw second-hand home prices rise.

NBS senior statistician Liu Jianwei attributed the narrowing decreases to government policy changes intended to avoid a sharp slowdown in the sector out of fear of jeopardizing the broader economy.

Those moves include fewer restrictions on home purchases and eased mortgage rules. In addition, the central bank in November lowered the one-year benchmark lending rate and deposit rate to cut financing costs.

Combined, the policies did have a positive impact on the sluggish market. In November, home sales reached a monthly high for this year, registering 809.6 billion yuan ($132.3 billion), 93.8 billion yuan ($15.09 billion) more than October.

FDI Surges

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland jumped 22.2 percent in November from a year earlier, settling at $10.36 billion, the Ministry of Commerce said on December 16.

The growth quickened from a 1.3-percent rise in October and 1.9 percent in September, as investments to the country's service industry continue rising steadily.

For the first 11 months, inward FDI, which excludes investment in the financial sector, stood at $106.24 billion, up 0.7 percent from the same period last year, the ministry said.

Around 55.1 percent of the FDI went into the country's service sector during the January-November period. The FDI in the manufacturing sector dropped 13.3 percent to $35.93 billion, accounting for 33.8 percent of the total.

Investments from the Republic of Korea and Britain saw fast growth, up 22.9 percent and 28 percent respectively. In contrast, investment from Japan plunged 39.7 percent, followed by a 23.6-percent drop from the ASEAN nations and 22.2-percent slump from the United States.

During the January-November period, China's outward FDI by non-financial investors rose by 11.9 percent to $89.8 billion. As of the end of November, non-financial outward FDI totaled 3.89 trillion yuan ($633.2 billion).

Gas Field Operational

China's largest producer of offshore oil and gas, CNOOC, announced production has begun at the Liuhua 34-2 gas field in the South China Sea on December 15.

CNOOC has a 51-percent working interest in the Liuhua 34-2 gas field, while Husky Oil China Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada-based Husky Energy, holds the remaining 49 percent working interest.

Liuhua 34-2 gas field is located in the Eastern South China Sea, with the water depth in the range of 850-1,250 meters. The gas field consists of one producing well and is producing approximately 30 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The field is expected to reach its designed peak production of approximately 45 million cubic feet per day in 2015.

In March this year, CNOOC and Husky Oil China put another deep-water gas field, Liwan 3-1, into operation.