MNI China Press Digest April 17: Home Prices, Bonds, Trade

Highlights from Chinese press reports on Thursday:

• New home prices in first-tier cities rose by 0.1% m/m in March, the same pace as February, with second-hand properties reversing the previous 0.1% decline to grow by 0.2%, Securities Daily reported, citing data by the National Bureau of Statistics. Among 70 major cities, 24 saw new home prices rise in March, six more than February, while ten cities noted price rises for second-hand housing, seven more than previous, the newspaper said.
• Government bond issuance will accelerate in Q2 to CNY7.8 trillion with net financing at CNY4.3 trillion, according to Securities Times, citing estimates from Industrial Securities. The Ministry of Finance will launch a first batch of CNY1.8 trillion special treasuries next Thursday. Local governments plan to issue over CNY2 trillion of bonds in Q2, higher than the same period last year. The scale of bond supply in the second quarter could exceed expectations considering the need to expand fiscal policy to hedge external pressure, the newspaper said, citing Feng Ling, analyst at Golden Credit Rating.
• The Canton Fair launched a dedicated station to connect 200 exporters with Chinese buyers, Securities Times reported. However, traditional foreign trade enterprises lack domestic sales channels and brand awareness, according to Chen Jianwei, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics. Additionally, export companies usually ship using buyer-to-buyer bulk orders and face difficulty adapting to the fragmented domestic retail system, said Zhu Keli, founding dean at the National Research Institute of New Economy.