The proportion of bad loans among individual loans in Beijing has increased to 2.4 percent in the first three quarters, up 0.12 percentage points from the beginning of the year, according to statistics from the central bank's Beijing bureau.

The outstanding value of non-performing loans (NPLs) gained 420 million yuan (US$61.49 million) in the first three quarters to 6.9 billion yuan by the end of September. Among those, individual mortgages stood at 4.185 billion yuan, accounting for 60.5 percent and auto loans stood at 2.019 billion yuan, accounting for 29.19 percent.

Meanwhile, real-estate related bad loans in Shanghai's financial institutions also jumped by 0.03 percentage points to 0.8 percent by the end of October, among which NPLs among property developers were up 0.03 percentage points to 1.83 percent, and those among individual mortgages up 0.04 percentage points to 0.7 percent.

"The bad loans to property developers may jump after the Spring Festival," said a manager with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest lender.

According to a report from Renmin University, if the real estate sector experiences a "hard landing", around 25 percent of loans could turn sour.

(China Daily November 26, 2008)