China's Gemdale Group, a leading property developer, announced Saturday its sales volume had surged 86.22 percent year on year in the first seven month of 2009 to 11.05 billion yuan (1.62 billion U.S. dollars).

Total home sales space of the company rose 88.27 percent to 1.04 million square meters nationwide from January to July, boosted by the robust domestic property market performance, said the developer in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

For July alone, the Shenzhen-based developer sold a total amount of 193,400 sq m of homes, up 156.5 percent year on year, with the aggregate sales volume reaching 2.48 billion yuan, up 157.2 percent year on year.

The Shanghai-listed firm's shares had fallen 5.24 percent to 16.81 yuan a share Friday before the release of the report.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2009)