A spokesperson of New World China Land also shrugged off the impact by noting "the policy has existed for a long time and we started to make provisions in1993."

Albert Tong, executive director of Tomson Group Ltd, said that the impact is very limited on his company as well.

"Since the company is free of debt and most of our projects are for lease, our business will withstand the effect of the measure," Tong said.

The land appreciation tax was introduced in 1993, but was collected on a voluntary basis. The central government said on Tuesday that it would be charged from next month on appreciation of the market value of land left undeveloped for three years after the measure takes effect.

The move is widely seen as an effort to curb the mainland's overheating property market and regulate developers who acquire a lot of land but do not develop it for years.

Analysts generally believed the tax would drag down profits as much as 60 percent.

But big developers may better withstand the impact due to their robust revenues.

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