Hitotsubashi Trade/Urban Economics Workshop – Seow Eng Ong (National University of Singapore)
2025/05/26
May 26 (Mon) Seow Eng Ong (National University of Singapore) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: The Emerging China REIT Market: Trends, Performance and Prospects
Abstract: China’s economic progress over the past decades has been predicated on investment in infrastructure (roads, cities, rail) rather than consumption. In the wake of slowing economic growth over the past years, the Chinese authorities have started to encourage consumption through various measures. Serendipitously, real estate investment trusts (REITs) were established in China since 2021. The C-REIT market is a good testing ground given that infrastructure REITs were the first to be introduced, followed by industrial/logistics, affordable housing and most recently retail/consumption REITs. In addition, retail C-REITs o er the most direct test for the impact of consumption policy measures. In this paper, we evaluate how the stock market responds to (a) introduction of retail C-REITs and (b) policy measures to boost consumption via the event study approach.