CHINA

Real Estate Irregularities Cost Country Billions, Paper Says: China’s property market is characterized by disorderly, illegal and arbitrarily priced land transactions, costing the state as much as $2.3 billion annually in lost revenue, according to the official Economic Information Daily. The newspaper said some local leaders abuse their powers by approving as many as 500,000 “hidden” land sales a year, with some property even given away free. Local authorities sold land use rights for more than 12,000 hectares of urban land in the first half of last year, but only 10% of the contracts were completed according to law, the paper said.