Greenland Group Chairman Zhang Yuliang: This year is a critical year for the real estate market. After fully stabilizing the decline, it will move towards healthy development.

By Daily Economic News reporter | Zhang Rui |
Edited by Daily Economic News | Wei Wenying

From March 22 to 23, the 2026 annual meeting of the China Development Forum was held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.

During the annual meeting, Zhang Yuliang, Chairman and President of Greentown Group, gave an on-site interview to reporters from the Economic Daily News (hereinafter referred to as “Daily Economic News reporter”).

In the interview, Zhang Yuliang said that over the past period, affected by the combined impact of multiple factors, China’s real estate industry has undergone deep adjustments. The market’s supply and demand relationship has undergone major changes. Both the volume and price of real estate sales have seen a significant decline, bringing considerable impacts to the real economy, financial security, and residents’ household wealth, among other areas.

To this end, from the central government to local authorities, extensive work has been carried out to help stabilize the real estate market and prevent further declines, achieving certain results. “Since this year, after undergoing deep adjustments, real estate in some large cities has already shown several signals of bottoming out and stabilizing.”

Zhang Yuliang, Chairman of Greentown Group |
Photo source: Provided by the interviewee

**On real estate: **Whether a turning point appears depends on policy intensity and market responsiveness

Zhang Yuliang believes that overall, China’s real estate industry’s deep adjustments have not yet come to an end. In most cities, the market remains sluggish and the downward trend in asset prices has not been fundamentally reversed. More efforts are still needed to further promote bottoming out and stabilization.

When asked whether a turning point for real estate might occur this year or next year, Zhang Yuliang said candidly that the emergence of a turning point depends on both the intensity of policies and the degree of market response. Currently, leading cities need to take on the responsibility of stabilizing market expectations. Taking Shanghai as an example, the “Seven Articles for Shanghai” policy was introduced recently, removing many home-purchase barriers and clearly increasing market activity. “Two years ago, the monthly transaction volume of Shanghai’s second-hand housing was about 20,000 units. After the new policy was implemented, this year’s March is expected to reach 30,000 units. This means that the replacement of older housing with newer homes and new purchasing power enter the market, which in turn positively affects first-hand home transactions.”

In Zhang Yuliang’s view, if financial policies and tax policies are put in place and people’s income and wealth can be stabilized, the real estate market in leading cities such as Shanghai can quickly hold steady. After leading cities stabilize, provincial capital cities and prefecture-level cities will follow suit. In this way, the entire real estate market can stabilize, and the bottom will be formed.

“If the bottom of the real estate market can be established this year, the market afterward will maintain a healthy range of new-home additions of RMB 5 trillion to RMB 6 trillion per year, and second-hand home additions of RMB 8 trillion to RMB 9 trillion per year. As for affordable housing, the government is making efforts. At present, the repurchase cost is relatively low (at about 60% to 70% of market prices), providing support for new urban residents and ordinary people.” Zhang Yuliang said that once stability is achieved on both the market side and the保障（affordable housing) side, the real estate industry’s major role in the national economy can be sustained.

Regarding how to further promote stabilization and rebound in the housing market, Zhang Yuliang believes that on the one hand, policies should continue to be strengthened, and a series of supporting supporting administrative and financial measures should be introduced to create a good environment, further improve and stabilize expectations for the real estate market, release and enhance market purchasing power, and increase market activity. On the other hand, real estate companies also need to “rise from the ashes,” place more emphasis on innovation-driven development and transformation, and chart a new path in the new era, thereby promoting stable and healthy development of the industry.

On transition: Long-term, bullish on the growth trend of新能源vehicles****exports

Energy supply assurance, exports of new energy vehicles, and other areas are new tracks that Greentown plans to focus on. Against the backdrop of a tense situation in the Middle East, with energy prices soaring, will these two tracks usher in major opportunities?

In response, Zhang Yuliang told a Daily Economic News reporter: “From the perspective of profits, these two new industries are our new growth curves. We believe there is a lot of room, and they are also industries with a solid foundation. We’ve already laid down quite a few positions.”

Zhang Yuliang mentioned that in the traditional energy sector, the company mainly fulfills civil livelihood projects and state-owned enterprise responsibilities related to coal supply assurance. Through building logistics distribution lines and making technology-based allocations (for example, blending 5,000 kcal and 3,000 kcal coal types), it substantially reduces costs and improves energy efficiency. “In the new energy sector, we are also continuing to explore and invest.”

“Export of new energy vehicles is a key direction we started focusing on last year.” Zhang Yuliang said that China’s new energy vehicles account for more than 50% of the global incremental growth. Not long ago, China’s export volume of new energy passenger vehicles first exceeded 50% of total passenger vehicle exports. “Last year, we focused mainly on the Middle East, and we have also expanded into markets such as Mexico and South America, as well as Southeast Asia.”

Zhang Yuliang said that the United Arab Emirates is a market with rapid growth for new energy vehicles in the Middle East, and Chinese products have clear advantages, with strong competitiveness and strong appeal to consumers. “We built a showroom there. After all of our customers and distributors visited and viewed it, they all praised Chinese new energy vehicles—whether it’s quality, price, or service.”

He said that as of now, the U.S. and the U.S.-led side’s military situation involving Israel and Iran has indeed had an impact in the short term. At the beginning of this year, the company’s plan to go to Dubai to build a service center and a logistics center was therefore obstructed. By late February, the vehicles worth RMB 70 million that the company ordered could not be shipped due to the interruption of logistics. “But I think this market is still there.”

In Zhang Yuliang’s view, in the long run, the growth trend of new energy vehicle exports is certain. Even though China’s trade is being suppressed by the United States, it is still growing. The reasons are: first, people’s desire to consume will not change, and products with high cost performance will always have a market; second, the trade relationships between China’s supply chain and global companies are hard to cut off. Even if there are further attempts to obstruct, there will always be Chinese companies that can go out, demonstrating very strong resilience.

“Because China can export, the companies over there will help you sell it. That’s the market working.” Zhang Yuliang said that technological progress mainly reduces costs and increases added value, thereby improving cost performance. The market’s profit-seeking nature will support global trade, so government intervention can only be a temporary restriction.

**On stabilizing expectations: **The core of stabilizing expectations is to stabilize asset prices

Zhang Yuliang said that entering the “15th Five-Year Plan to 2026 (2021–2025) to 2026 (15th five-year? )” period—during China’s economic development—there have been many positive changes. Social expectations have gradually improved, and market confidence has continued to rebound. However, it should also be seen that due to the impact of various complex factors at home and abroad, many cyclical and structural problems are intertwined. Difficulties in operations for bottom-tier first-line enterprises still remain prevalent. Residents’ wealth growth faces significant pressure. The issue that China’s economic and social development expectations are weak has not been fundamentally reversed.

Therefore, in Zhang Yuliang’s view, efforts should be made from multiple angles to further adopt strong measures, so that expectations of the economy rebounding to a better trend become even stronger.

Specifically, first, more efforts need to be added at the policy level. On the one hand, based on reality, more measures that are favorable for stabilizing growth and stabilizing expectations should be introduced, and policies with contraction and suppression effects should be introduced prudently. On the other hand, policy implementation should be tightly enforced to ensure effectiveness—especially by addressing the issue of “temperature differences” between the top and bottom, using greater efforts to ensure that a series of policy measures to stabilize growth and promote development land precisely and quickly.

Second, the core of stabilizing expectations lies in stabilizing key items, especially asset prices. Real estate is related to stabilizing growth, social wealth, and people’s livelihoods. The stock market is also crucial. It is an important platform for expanding channels for urban and rural residents’ income from property and for helping people share in the fruits of economic development. These are the core supports for stabilizing expectations. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately grasp new developments and new problems in both the real estate and stock markets, and to use stronger and more precise measures to continuously stabilize the real estate market and the capital market.

Third, the correct view of political achievements should be established, with a commitment to development and execution first. Expectations are not a foregone result; they need to be achieved through hard work. An atmosphere of execution should be created, and a societal synergy for seeking development should be formed.

Fourth, innovation and transformation should be accelerated to build more “three new things,” so that China’s economy can form a strong synergy toward being new and better. Technological innovation is the fundamental driving force. In global competition, it is technology that matters. With advanced technology, productivity is higher and there are more export opportunities. The ability to export at scale now is because costs are low, technology is good, and products are practical and strong. Although there are administrative barriers and protectionism, market demand and consumers’ preferences cannot be stopped. Even if Chinese products face additional tariffs, they remain good value for money. At present, China has relatively low production costs, high labor productivity, and clear progress in technology. If there are continued breakthroughs in areas such as innovative drugs and green energy, and “three new things” are formed every year, international competitiveness will be greatly enhanced.

Finally, entrepreneurs’ spirit is the most intrinsic driving force of the economy. Greatly promote the entrepreneurial spirit and boost market confidence with more milestone and breakthrough development results. Without entrepreneurs and companies striving forward, there can be no technological progress and no social prosperity.

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Cover image source: Provided by the interviewee