(Yicai Global) April 1 -- Land sales in China climbed 26 percent in the first three months of the year, spearheaded by Greenland Holdings, Poly Developments and Holdings Group and Vanke, amid the country’s economic recovery and readily available financing.

CNY702.1 billion (USD107.1 billion) was spent on land in 50 cities in the quarter ended March 31, according to data released by Centaline Property Research Center yesterday. The biggest buyers were Shanghai-based Greenland, Guangzhou-based Poly and Shenzhen-based Vanke, which each shelled out over CNY20 billion (USD3 billion).

Financing is relatively easy to come by for property developers and the economy is bouncing back well, spurring the demand for land, the Economic View reported, citing Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at Centaline Property.

At CNY90 billion (USD13.7 billion), Shanghai raked in the most from selling plots of land for development, followed by Hangzhou in neighboring Zhejiang province and Guangzhou in southeastern Guangdong province. They banked CNY70 billion and CNY30 billion, respectively.

Wuxi, another city close to Shanghai in Jiangsu province, had the fastest increase as first-quarter sales there surged over 5,000 percent from a year earlier.

In most areas, prices are back to where they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, Zhang said.

Editor: Kim Taylor