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BEIJING, January 13 (TMTPOST) —— China's central bank has drafted an action plan to improve the balance sheets of quality property developers, according to information provided by sources from relevant government departments on Friday.

Zou Lan, head of the monetary policy department of the People's Bank of China, briefed the media about the action plan at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on Friday.

It has specified 21 tasks to prevent risks from spreading to good-quality real estate enterprises and improve their operating and financing cash flows with comprehensive measures. The good-quality real estate enterprises refer to those focused on the main business with compliance management, good qualifications, and a certain degree of systemic importance.

Market analysts pointed out that efforts are aimed at maintaining asset price stability, restructuring debts, improving financing and sales.

In addition to the implementation of existing policies, Zou pointed out that the plan also includes a series of new measures, such as providing national financial asset management companies for special re-lending and starting a housing rental loan support program.

After a round of financial policy adjustments in the real estate industry at the end of 2022, the market environment has improved to some extent.  Zou said that recently the real estate industry, especially the good-quality housing enterprises financing environment improved significantly.

On the supply side, from September to November 2022, real estate development loans increased by more than 170 billion yuan ($25.3 billion), an increase of more than 200 billion yuan ($29.8 billion) year-on-year. In the fourth quarter, Chinese real estate enterprises issued more than 120 billion yuan ($17.9 billion) of bonds, a year-on-year growth of 22%.

On the demand side, Zou said that in December 2022, the national average interest rate of new individual housing loans was 4.26 percent, down 1.37 percentage points year-on-year, "which is the lowest level in history since the statistics began in 2008."