In 2023, total real estate investments in China amounted to RMB 11.0913 trillion ($1.6 trillion), down 9.6 percent year on year, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The pace of the decline was only slightly lower than the 10 percent drop in 2022, signaling that the real estate market continued to slow down.
In the given period, new commercial real estate sold in China covered a total area of 1.11735 billion m2, down 8.5 percent year on year, which is a little faster than the eight percent decline in the first 11 months of the year. Compared with 2022, the pace of the decline was much slower, but most market sources assess this not as an improvement, but as a continuation of the downtrend, since the drop in 2022 was excessively big, at - 24.3 percent year on year.
The total area covered by construction activity in China in the given period declined by 7.2 percent year on year. The new area covered by construction activity - which is the main indicator for steel demand in the construction industry - decreased by 20.4 percent year on year versus a decline of 39.4 percent in 2022.