China Vanke's March Property Sales Up 24%
By: Reuters



China Vanke, the country's largest real estate developer by sales, posted on Thursday its second monthly sales rise in a row, with March sales hitting 11.5 billion yuan ($1.83 billion), up 23.5 percent on the same month last year.  
It said in an email that it sold 1.1 million square metres of property in March. For the first quarter the firm had 31.1 billion yuan in sales and sold 3 million square metres of property.
Vanke reported last month that profits rose 32 percent last year to 9.62 billion yuan.  
For two years China has restricted bank lending to the real estate sector and limited citizens' ability to buy several homes, or homes in other cities, to curb speculation in high-end housing that spurred a doubling of prices in key cities between mid-2009 and the end of 2010.