China’s Vacant Homes Now 1.4 Billion More Than Chinese Can Fill, Says Former China Official

Oversupply in Chinese real estate sector can never be filled, Chinese official admits.

A laborer carries materials at the construction site of a new housing project in Hefei, in eastern China's Anhui province on Feb. 18, 2012. The real estate market, which had been booming prior to the global recession, has markedly worsened. STR/AFP/Getty Images

There may be too many vacant homes in China for even a population of 1.4 billion people to fill, a former Chinese official admitted recently.

He Keng, the former deputy head of the communist regime’s statistics bureau, spoke of his concern for China’s real estate market, given what he sees as the obvious oversupply of residential properties. Mr. He was speaking at an open forum on Sept. 23 in Dongguan, an industrial city in the south of China.