China is drafting rules to regulate real estate trusts to achieve healthy growth of the fast-expanding business.

Gao Chuanjie, director of the Non-Banking Financial Institution Supervision Department of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), said yesterday in Beijing that the commission is quickening the drafting of rules to provide enhanced supervision and systematic guarantees for the real estate trust sector.

The rules will be published on the watchdog's website for public consultation when ready, Gao told China Daily at a financial forum during the fifth Beijing Chaoyang International Business Festival.

But he did not reveal a timetable or details.

Gao's department regulates the more than 50 trust companies in China which, after years of reform, are experiencing a recovery, and bringing out a batch of new products such as foreign exchange trusts.

Most of the trust projects launched during the past two years are real estate and financial trusts.

Statistics indicate that more than 100 real estate trusts were launched in China during 2003 and up to June this year, which accounted for about a third of the trust products issued during the period, helping real estate developers raise 13 billion yuan (US$1.57 billion) of funds.

Part of the reason for the boom is rising demand from investors for new investment tools, as the country's savings pool increases steadily. Another is the central bank's move to tighten credit supply to the real estate market to pierce the bubbles of last year, experts said.

A sharp decline in banking loans has pushed real estate developers to seek other funding resources, which has brought more clients to trust companies.

Overseas real estate developers and investment funds are also eyeing the Chinese market, and brewing trust projects, said Gao.

The sector therefore badly needs comprehensive rules to ensure a standard and healthy development, he said.

In July, CBRC published a draft of rules on information disclosure requirements for trust companies, aimed at increasing transparency in the business and tightening risk control.

For projects related to real estate, which is overheating and has become the target of credit control, trust companies should permit comprehensive information disclosure and reveal potential risks arising from policy and market changes and the operation of the projects, said Xing Cheng, a researcher with the Trust and Fund Research Institute of the Renmin University of China.

(China Daily September 17, 2004)