'It's like a city recovering from an aerial bombardment' is how Tianjin residents jokingly describe their city's rapid urban redevelopment, which has lifted residential demand significantly.
While official figures showed the area under redevelopment last year was four million square metres, property consultant DTZ Debenham Tie Leung said a more accurate estimate was 7.5 million square metres, and the work showed no signs of flagging.
A property consultant said: 'The government probably thinks the actual figures sound too aggressive to the public. Therefore it is playing them down a bit.
'But I don't see any signs that government is slowing down the speed of the city's redevelopment.'
The rush started in the middle of last year after the former governor of the People's Bank of China, Dai Xianglong, become the city's mayor.
Mr Dai, on behalf of the Tianjin municipal government, signed loan agreements with China Construction Bank, the Agricultural Bank of China and the State Development Bank - all of which he used to regulate - totalling 39.7 billion yuan for road, urban redevelopment and other projects.
He has said Tianjin will spend 100 billion yuan on fixed-asset investment this year and 700 billion yuan by 2007.
