China's property market shows signs of improvement in first three quarters: NBS official

China's property market showed signs of stabilizing in the first three quarters of this year, as the decline in key sector indicators has narrowed, suggesting that the measures implemented to boost the housing market are having an effect, said an official from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.

At a press conference in Beijing, Sheng Laiyun, deputy head of the NBS, said that a raft of pro-property market policies are kicking in, as evidenced by narrowing declines in property development investment and in real estate sales.

The investment in property market in China fell 10.1 percent year on year in the first nine months of the year, with the decline narrowing from the January-August period.

From January to September, the decline in the sold floor space of new commodity housing narrowed by 1.9 percentage points compared to the first half of the year, marking four consecutive months of narrowing. Meanwhile, the decline in housing sales narrowed for five consecutive months.

According to Sheng, the confidence in the property market has strengthened and expectations have improved.

"Recently, we conducted a special survey among real estate development enterprises and agencies in 70 large and medium-sized cities across China. In September, the percentage of real estate agents selling new homes who expressed optimism about their business operations increased by 10 percent compared to the previous month, and those selling pre-owned homes up by 6.5 percent. This indicates a significant boost in confidence. So, we have reason to believe that the property market is poised for positive changes," said Sheng.

China has rolled out a slew of policies to bolster the real estate sector, including cutting minimum down payment ratios, abolishing the commercial mortgage rate floors for first and second homes, and establishing a re-lending facility that supports local state-owned enterprises in using such funds to purchase commodity homes for affordable housing.

China's property market shows signs of improvement in first three quarters: NBS official

The director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency said Wednesday that the United States has paused intelligence support to Ukraine, on top of halting weapons shipments to the country that's still at war with Russia.

John Ratcliffe, the CIA chief, said in an interview with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo that U.S. President Donald Trump "had a real question about whether President Zelensky was committed to the peace process, and he said let's pause."

The decision came after a clash between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday, where Trump demanded gratitude from Zelensky for the aid Washington provided to Kiev. The Ukrainian leader was asked to leave the White House without signing a minerals deal with Trump as originally planned.

Zelensky has since been trying to mend the relationship with the U.S. administration by efforts including sending a letter to Trump expressing his willingness "to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer," Trump said in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

"I want to give a chance to think about that and you saw the response that President Zelensky put out," Ratcliffe told Bartiromo on Wednesday. "So I think on the military front and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed that to happen, I think will go away."

"And I think we'll work shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine," Ratcliffe said in an expression of optimism, adding that Washington and Kiev would work together to "put the world in a better place for these peace negotiations to move forward."

CIA chief says US pauses intel sharing with Ukraine