Poly Real Estate sees robust profit growth

Poly Real Estate Group Co., China's second largest property developer by market value, saw strong profit growth in the first three quarters of 2014 amid the cooling down in the sector, new data showed.

Net profits surged by 31.8 percent year on year to 6.08 billion yuan (about 989 million U.S. dollars) in the first nine months, the company said Monday in a report filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The pace was even faster than a 20.7 percent profit growth for the same period of last year, when the country's property market was in a much better condition.

Poly said it reduced inventories and increased sales in the first three quarters. Total property sales volume rose 3.52 percent although the sales area dropped by 9.18 percent.

Basic earnings per share rose to 0.57 yuan from 0.43 yuan for the first nine months of 2013, while the company's total revenue climbed 17.9 percent to 52.2 billion yuan.

China's property market has been in a period of cooling down since the beginning of the year. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that commercial housing sales in term of floor space dropped 8.6 percent in the first nine months, widening by 0.3 percentage point from the first eight months.

Prices for new homes in 69 out of 70 major Chinese cities tracked by the bureau dropped month on month in September, compared with 68 cities in August.