Developers' asset-liability ratio falls

The asset-liability ratio of China's top 100 property developers fell in 2012, the first drop in the last five years, a study showed on Friday.

The average effective asset-liability ratio for the top 100 Chinese property developers was 47.3 percent, down 1.9 percentage points year-on-year, according to a study by the China Real Estate Top 10 Research Institute, which includes experts from the Development Research Center of the State Council, Tsinghua University and the China Index Academy. This was the 10th annual study.

Meanwhile, the average land bank of major property developers' rose 3.6 percent year-on-year to 10.8 million square meters, which is enough for their development needs in the next three years.

Most key players had 72.63 percent of their newly increased land bank in first- and second-tier cities, much higher than in 2010 and 2011. They largely enhanced their land banks in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The market share of the country's top 100 property developers was 29.6 percent in 2012, indicating an industry consolidation trend, the study said.