Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Shui On Land's 2022 interim results and this briefing.
Thank you very much for joining us online this evening.
We are pleased to have five members of the senior management team with us today. Mr. Vincent Lo, our chairman. Ms. Stephanie Lo, Executive Director of Shui On Land and Vice Chairman of Shui On Xintiandi . Mr. Douglas Sung, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Shui On Land. Ms. Jessica Wang, Chief Executive Officer of Shui On Land. And Mr. Allan Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of Shui On Xintiandi . We will start with a presentation by the management, followed by Q&A.
During the course of the webcast, you may submit your questions via the webcast portal, and they will be conveyed to our management during the Q&A session.
Without further ado, may I invite Mr. Lo to start with some opening remarks. Mr. Lo, please.
Good evening. Thank you for joining our briefing session.
It hasn't been easy in the past six months because of the COVID situation in China and also the world situation is not very promising. The Russia-Ukraine war, when is it going to end, and its impact on the rest of the world.
The worsening relationship between U.S., China, inflation hitting the world and stagflation is very much a likely scenario going forward. I mentioned about the COVID situation, the lockdown in Shanghai a few months ago. It's really hitting the economy and business hard.
Of course, the not so good situation in the property sector. Declining sales, the debt problem, it's actually bringing forward a major correction in the property business and our industry.
I think it's a very exciting time. I will not say too much. I'll leave it for my colleagues to give you all the details.
Thanks, Chairman. Just as an introduction to our results, we have been greatly impacted by the COVID outbreak in the first half this year, but overall, our performance remained very solid as supported by strong balance sheet.
We redeemed a $600 million US dollar perpetual with internal resources in June this year. Because of the redemption of the perpetual, our gearing ratio increased by 13%. Now currently our net gearing ratio is at 48%, which is still a very healthy state. We have cash and bank deposits of over CNY 12 billion.
In terms of operational performance, our property sales and rental remain very stable despite the impact of COVID. Our contracted property sales increased 15% year-on-year.
We achieved a locked in sales of CNY 43 billion, and our rental and related income increased 8% year-on-year. Despite the impact from COVID, Douglas will talk a little bit more about the reason why our profit has been adversely impacted this year. It was decided at the board this morning that we will have a dividend payout of HKD 0.036 per share for the first half of this year, which is the same as the first half in 2021. In terms of market outlook, as the chairman mentioned, in the short term, we remain very cautious on the outlook of the property sector.
Due to the COVID outbreaks and various lockdowns across different cities in China, and the ongoing liquidity crisis in China's real estate sector, we have seen GDP growth and retail consumption contract drastically in the Q2. Having said that, you are seeing policy relaxation on home purchase restrictions being more relaxed across over 100 cities in China.
The PBOC cut the five-year Loan Prime Rate in May. The government in general, we believe, will not allow for a hard landing. However, we do believe that it will be a more protracted resolution of this real estate crisis over the next couple of years. Just a couple words about Shanghai, given we have a very heavy concentration of projects and investments in Shanghai.
Despite the lockdown that persisted for close to 3 months, retail and office naturally were very impacted, but we are seeing a very steady recovery and stable recovery. In terms of retail, the foot traffic and sales are close to 2021 records. In terms of residential sales, in fact, we've seen very strong residential sales at our properties, especially after lockdown. Ms. Jessica Wang will share more about our Rainbow City project later. In terms of the Shanghai land market, the land market remains very resilient. Post-lockdown land auctions charted very strong performance, and I think this is a flight to safety and a flight to quality.
The Tier 1 cities, we do believe, especially in Shanghai, will continue to remain resilient in the medium and long term. In terms of our strategic focus, we are very well positioned, we feel, to capture new opportunities that are rising from the dislocation in the real estate sector to deliver quality growth over the long term.
Our solid balance sheet and liquidity situation, included with our prime locations across Shanghai in particular, allow us to be very resilient in being able to weather the storm. We also have a very iconic brand known for urban regeneration, which is becoming increasingly a very important runway for growth in terms of development, especially in Tier 1 cities where a lot of the development has been quite saturated over the last two decades.
Just a point here to note about the rising importance of high quality. I think right now, whether it is investment or whether it is in terms of consumer, there is a flight to quality. We believe that our you know persistent and long-term view on strengthening and having strong corporate governance and integrity at our business has been paying off.
Therefore, we hope we can continue to develop Shui On as a very trusted partner to all stakeholders. Lastly, just a word about our sustainability, because I think you all must have seen a lot in the news lately about historic heatwaves across the world, forest fires, and droughts. In China in particular, there have been record number of hot days over 40 degrees.
This has really highlighted the need to reduce our energy consumption and focus on our reduction of our carbon emissions. This is why, in July, we actually submitted an upgraded set of commitment and targets to the SBTi to align to 1.5 degrees in the near term in 2030. Also would like to highlight the fact that we're one of three China companies that were included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index in 2020, 2021. We will continue to strengthen our disclosures across our sustainability, including TCFD and our recently published climate change policy. With that, I'll hand over to Douglas.
Thank you, Stephanie. Let me give the audience the financial highlights for the interim period. This next page is just a snapshot on some of the key financial indicators. Obviously, first half, 2022 was extremely challenging for the property industry in China. Shui On obviously cannot be immune to that huge challenge. In particular, because we have a large proportion of our business and our assets based in Shanghai. The lockdown in Shanghai in the Q2 has definitely materially impact our financial performance as well. For the first half period, there were basically three main factors affecting us. One is delay in some of our residential construction and delivery to buyers. Some of the revenue recognition has slipped into second half of the year.
This is particularly on the Taipingqiao Lakeville Phase 5 units, which we originally intended to complete and hand over to the buyers before June, but because of the lockdown, it has slipped into second half of the year. Second, of course, impact to rental income and related income from the Shanghai lockdown. The third major item would be the impact from the RMB depreciation in the first half. We did suffer the non-cash exchange loss of about CNY 470 million in the interim period. On the next page, I'll just highlight particularly on the revenue side, property sales and rental income. You can see that in the interim period, property sales revenue was only roughly about CNY 2.5 billion.
This is not a large amount. You can see that in the Shanghai Taipingqiao area, we did not have any major handover or profit recognition because of the construction slippage due to the lockdown. This is one major impact on the revenue side. On the rental income side, the performance was actually very, very good considering what happened in China and in Shanghai in the first half of the year. In terms of our rental revenue, it increased 1% year-on-year. If we include our JV and associate projects, it actually increased by 8% year-on-year. That was, I think, a good testimony on the strength of our commercial properties in core locations.
Next page is the breakdown on the income statement. I won't go through all the line items, just highlight a few things. We talked about property sales revenue, so you can see it's a large year-over-year decline. In addition to the delay of handover of Lakeville Phase 5 this year, in the first half last year, we actually had a lot of residential completion and delivery to buyers. That's why you can see that it was a relatively large decline year-over-year compared to first half of 2021. Rental income I mentioned was up slightly from a year ago.
Cost of sales, of course, because of the relatively low volume of residential property delivery and recognition, the cost of sales figure also have dropped a lot, compared to a year ago. Gross profit margin at 64%. This is higher than usual. Last year was 41%. This is just purely because of the composition of revenue. We have much lower property sales revenue in this half compared to last year. As a result, the percentage of proportion of rental income is actually quite substantial. Typically, rental income has a much higher gross profit margin compared to property sales. So this is the main reason. Other income is generally, interest income.
I'll talk a little bit more about the fair value increase of our IP at CNY 64 million. Other gains and losses include a variety of things, including some of the hedging costs, which we hedge a percentage of our non-RMB debt. You can see the result of the RMB depreciation and the net exchange loss of CNY 477 million. Including this, the overall finance cost is about CNY 1.17 billion in the first half of the year. Profit before tax is just slightly over CNY 1 billion. On the next page, you see profit after tax. Total profit is about CNY 779 million.
If we net out minority interest, is about CNY 450 million profit attributable to shareholders. As Stephanie mentioned earlier, the board has recommended to pay interim dividend of HK$0.036 per share, which is the same level as of interim 2021. Next page, our financial positions. On the net gearing level, as of June, is 48%. This is mainly a function of us repaying the $600 million US dollar perpetual securities in June. Because the perpetual securities were accounted for as shareholder's equity in the balance sheet, and we used internal cash to repay them. The overall impact to net gearing was about 13%.
This much is really the main reason why you see an increase from the end of last year of 30% net gearing to currently about 48%. We have about CNY 15 billion cash on hand at the interim level. I think the other point to highlight is on the financing we've done in the first half. Of course, we know that many in the sector, many developers in this sector have a lot of financial challenges and have difficulty securing financing. For Shui On Land, in the first half, we repaid or refinanced over $1.1 billion of our debt, including the $600 million US dollar perpetual. Again, we still are able to secure financing from various channels.
I think this is also a reflection of our very prudent and conservative balance sheet management over the last few years. We have also some bought back some shares in the first half of the year. Not a significant amount because the stock our stock is not very liquid in the market. We hope that in the coming future, there will continue the opportunity for us to buy back more shares. Next page. The total asset is pretty much been stable last few years at about RMB 110 billion or so. No significant changes over the last couple of years. Next page. You can see that on the IP valuation, the overall valuation is basically flat from same period last year.
Obviously, in some individual properties, there were some ups and downs in valuation. But you can see in most cases, the changes in valuation is less than 0.23%. Very, very minor movements in the value of our property.
Again, I think it's a testimony that the core location properties that we own are very, very stable. Despite the impact of COVID and the lockdown in Shanghai in the first half of the year, it has not made any significant impact to the value of our properties. Next page. Debt position, I've already explained the increase in gearing because of the redemption of the perpetual. The overall net debt, you can see that, well, the net debt amount was also very stable at about CNY 21 billion.
This is pretty much at a very stable level compared to the last three to four years. The increase in the gearing, again, is not because we ramp up our debt. It's simply because of the accounting treatment on the perpetual.
Next page. This is just for your reference, the debt profile, maturity profile. We don't have any additional US dollar senior notes maturing until November next year. In the next 12 to 18 months, most of the maturity will be on bank financing that we have both onshore and offshore. The last page is again for your reference, the maturity profile of our US dollar notes. With that, I'll hand over to Jessica to talk about the development business.
Yeah. Thanks, Douglas. With regards to the property development, firstly, I would like to highlight our key observations from current market and the company's growth strategy going forward. The economic downturn and ongoing property sector correction pose many challenges to the developers.
We also see opportunities during the transition and from the COVID lockdown. We can see the average divergent sales performance among cities, companies and projects. The Tier 1 and Tier II cities developed with proven international and quality products outperformed in this challenging environment. With an urbanization rate of nearly 65% in China, urban regeneration plays an increasingly important role in future development of top-tier cities.
Demands on mixed-use, community-based quality residential products with better service becomes stronger post-COVID lockdown. In view of this backdrop, SO is well-positioned to ride on our strengths in urban regeneration, our proven track record in master plan and cultural preservation, and our strong presence in Shanghai and the key cities for future growth.
In response to the changing market and the demands, we strive to provide the best suitable solution in developing sustainable premier urban communities in China and keep an eye on long-term opportunities. Our disciplined capital management strategy and solid balance sheet enable us to grow the business, and we will continue to look for opportunities in Shanghai and the first-tier cities, as well as strategic locations within the Yangtze River Delta and the Greater Bay Area.
We will focus on high-quality mixed-use community development and also actively explore new product innovation for long-term growth. Our current investment focus is to increase our land bank and look for investment opportunities with quicker turnover, and we will also explore potential merger and acquisition opportunities from the market correction. Next. Next.
Despite macro challenges and the COVID outbreak, we have still achieved very strong residential sales in the first half of 2022, which demonstrates buyers' confidence in our projects. In this period, our contract sales increased by 55% year-on-year to CNY 18.75 billion, which with residential property sales accounting for 99% and the remainder contributed by the sales of our commercial units.
The increase was mainly from strong sales performance in Shanghai Ruihong Xincheng Lot 167 and the Shanghai Ruihong Xincheng Lot 167A. As for 13th June 2022, total subscribed sales of CNY 1.8 billion were recorded. These sales will be converted to contract sales in the coming months. Next.
For the second half, we have 147,300 square meters of residential GFA available for sales, of which about 58% are from projects in Shanghai. A big portion is coming from Panlong Tiandi, which had a total of 71,900 square meters of GFA for sales in July. It received overwhelming response from the market, and I will give you a detailed introduction in the later part. The rest mainly comes from Wuhan.
Next.
The first project I'd like to highlight is Ruihong Xincheng, Park Vera Lot 167A. This is the last residential project of Ruihong Xincheng. The estimated residential GFA is around 86,000 square meters. Due to the COVID outbreak and the lockdown, the sales launch was deferred to June eighth from March.
It is the first residential in the downtown area and the second one in Shanghai that were permitted to launch sales after the lockdown. Buyers' sentiment remained very strong.
The project is significantly oversubscribed, and it has 609 units in total, and it received a deposit from 1,940 potential buyers. All units were sold on the launch day, and the average selling price is CNY 119,800 per square meter. It contributed CNY 10 billion to contract and subscribed sales in the first half. Next. The other project I'd like to highlight is Panlong Tiandi. Panlong Tiandi is strategically located in the Hongqiao core area. It is one of the first batch of urban village regeneration projects in Shanghai.
Leveraging our experience in urban regeneration and cultural preservation, we revitalized the urban village into a world-class sustainable urban community. Upholding the philosophy of culture, nature, future, our master plan concept and quality development has received greater recognition from the public and the government. The third Phase of Panlong Tiandi was launched in July. The newly developed low-rise residential products also received overwhelming market response.
We received over 2,000 subscriptions for the 571 units to be launched, and the 3.5 times oversubscription reflects the strong demand for our project. According to the government policy, 1,062 customers entered into the final lottery draw process, which records a high entry score at 91.22 in Shanghai. With the successful launch, we are confident in achieving the full year contract sales target.
Next. This slide has summarized our essential development land bank and the sellable resources in the future. The total sellable amount is CNY 76 billion as of the end of June 2022, with attributable value at CNY 42.6 billion. CNY 26.3 billion sellable resources are in Shanghai, and the rest are in Wuhan and Chongqing, of which CNY 38.2 billion come from Wuhan Shipyard project.
Next.
Besides the essential development land bank, we also have a strong commercial development portfolio in Shanghai and other high-growth cities. It will drive for further rental growth and capital recycling in future. This slide shows the list of commercial properties already under development and in the pipeline.
The total size of our commercial property portfolio was 2.938 million square meters, of which 60% were for office and 40% for retail. In Shanghai, we have 426,000 square meters of commercial properties, of which 60% GFA for office use and 34% are for retail. That concludes my part. I'd like to hand over to Alan, please.
Thank you, Jessica. In this section, I would like to introduce the results of the Shui On Xin Tian Di.
First of all, I would like to highlight that the Shui On Xin Tian Di is one of the largest commercial property owner with a very iconic presence in Shanghai. So far, our portfolio has reached 1.72 million square meters. If you look at the list of the major listed companies, we are still ranked number one. Next slide is a list of some pictures about our major properties in Shanghai. In one way, our mature property has been growing to a larger scale. At the same time, we have been successfully acquiring new pipelines.
As you can see from these slides, we have two new pipeline which are under preparation for open next year.
The first one is the lower left hand, which is the Panlong Tiandi. The second one is the higher right-hand, Hong Shou Fang. These two projects will open for business in next year. Because of the strategic locations and also the quality and also the unique positioning, our commercial value, the valuation actually has been going up all the way up to CNY 81 billion totally in Shanghai and other properties.
Next slides, it's a bit about an introduction about the three business segments. We usually divide the business into three sectors. The first one is the property investment, which is basically our majority investment and ownership into the commercial properties. Right now, the PI industry basically contributes around 76% of our revenue. The second sector is the property management business.
Right now, it's contribute around 18% of our revenue. The most younger one is the real estate asset manager. We basically initiate this sector around 4 years ago. Right now, it's contribute around 5%. But the growth rate has been recorded quite high, which I will introduce a bit more later. Well, next slide is very quick summary about our business, P&L figures and the balance sheets.
As you can see, our revenue actually has been grow up by 3% year-on-year to CNY 1.4 billion last year for first half of this year comparing to last year. I'm not going to touch base on all of the profit data, but I just want to highlight the underlying profit, which is actually increased by more than 23% year-on-year.
For the balance sheet, right now, our net assets basically achieved CNY 33 billion this year, and our net gearing ratio has been maintained at a very healthy level, which is 15% now. Next slides, we're going to a bit more details about our different business segments. As we have discussed before, due to the COVID impact, the Shanghai PI revenue basically has been impacted significantly.
Due to the compensation from our other projects, specifically Wuhan, Chongqing, our revenue in Wuhan basically increased by more than 20%. Our Chongqing revenue increased by 35%. The contribution from the other cities basically compensates a lot for us to fill the gap from Shanghai. Our PI, our rental revenue, basically recorded a quite modest growth rate.
The only exception in the revenue part is from our asset management business. As mentioned before, this business segment has been growing at a double digit. Well, this year, the growth rate is more than 39%. Our AUM scale basically goes up all the way to CNY 26 billion now.
Next slide is a bit more about the introduction according to the asset type and also the geographic distribution. If you look at the left-hand chart, we have been strategically and protectively proactively maintain a quite balanced office and retail portfolio. First half, the retail part basically contribute to CNY 674 million revenue. The office basically contributes around CNY 449 million rental income.
As you can see, the relationship is quite balanced. Also, if you look at the geographic distribution, right now our portfolios in Shanghai basically contributes more than 71% of our revenue. The second largest one is Wuhan, contributes 14% of our revenue. The rest of the revenue are coming from the other cities, Foshan, Chongqing, and Nanjing.
Next slide is a bit more introduction about the COVID impact. I think which is the COVID impact is apparently one of the biggest challenge we have been facing in first half. In the first half, we have been trying to leverage our resource to safeguard our talents and our employees.
In first half, we as a company donated around CNY 5 million to support the COVID-19 screening and other control and other measures. At the same time, we have been trying to leverage our resources in the retail, sourcing a lot of food and other emergency packages, and also solved the logistics issues to shift all of these packages to our employees and our talents.
For the retail talents, we have provided rental concessions and also other promotional resources and other effective support to our talents to recover their business. Because of all of these measures, after reopening in June, we observed a very stable and strong foot traffic recovery.
So far, our foot traffic has been recovered to more than 19%, and sales also more than 19%. I would like to mention about our occupancy rate. At the end of June, our occupancy rate for all of the retail and office are above 90%.
Next slide is basically a bit more about the breakdown of all of the SXTD-owned properties. I'm not going to introduce all of the details, but there are two figures I would like to mention. The first one is the income growth rate. Due to the contribution from the other properties in Chongqing and Wuhan, we have you know recorded modest growth rate by 2% comparing to previous year.
As mentioned, our occupancy rate are quite stable, and most of the mature properties in Shanghai had a very high occupancy rate, which is usually above 95%. The only two exception in this slide is the second line, the Xintiandi Style II. The occupancy rate is 62%. Also the last line, the Nanjing IFC, 58%. We basically initiated a renovation exercise from last year. So far, the occupancy rate was quite low in first half. Next slide is a bit more introduction about the property management business and also the asset management business.
The property management business has been growing. So far, the total portfolio reached 9.4 million square meters, including all of the commercial and the residential areas.
For the asset management business, our AUM's portfolio has been growing up to CNY 26 billion. Total GFA, it was actually 680,000 square meters. Through all of these type of management portfolio, we have been formed a very healthy and a long-term relationship with all of the insurance company and also state-owned company.
We believe that with this strong support from the established partners, we can keep growing the asset management business at a quite big double-digit number. Last slides, I would like to highlight about our strategy for the near term and the long term. For the near term, of course, it's very important to make sure our operations stay resilient and agile, which is very important in one way to safeguard our employee and the talents.
On the other hand, help us a lot to save the operating costs. For the support to the tenants, we will keep using a very flexible leasing strategies to create a win-win relationship with our tenants, at the same time to provide very strong support to help them to recover their business. In the long run, we'll keep leveraging on our advantage in creating thriving communities.
Because we believe that in the long run, especially after the impact of the COVID, people actually realize the benefit of larger scale and mixed-use communities. These types of opportunities will help us a lot to achieve a sustainable growth rate. At the same time, we have been closely monitoring the trend of the market.
We observed that there are a lot of new demand in the long run. We are trying to leverage on this new demand in the long run. The last point I would like to is just as I just mentioned, the asset light business, which is our asset management business. We will keep leveraging on our strong team and our competitive advantages to grow this business.
We believe that after COVID, and there are a lot of corrections which produce a lot of opportunity for us to keep growing the business. I'll stop here and hand it back to Luna.
Thank you, Allan, and thank you, Mr. Lo and other management for the presentation.
We'll now take some questions from the audience, and please allow me to group certain questions together maybe because some of them, some of you are asking very similar questions.
The first one is on M&A. Would you please share a bit more on our M&A strategy, given the current difficulty in financing? Would you wait for a better time for the M&A opportunities? May I invite Mr. Lo?
Yes.
Awesome.
Well, since last year, we've been closely monitoring the market to see if there's any good buys. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the troubled developers are still holding on to their prime assets, because they still haven't felt the urgency yet. I don't believe they can hold on forever, and I think there will be better projects available next year. When it comes to survival, I guess you will have to sell. We are waiting for that opportunities. On the buying side, we want to replenish our land bank. Ms. Jessica Wang has also mentioned that we're looking at a number of government projects that they want to invite us to participate.
With the reduced competition, we do believe that we can get attractive projects from the government. We're focusing on that end at this point in time.
Thank you, Mr. Lo. Next question is relating it to the COVID impact. Would you please discuss the COVID impact toward property sales and rental income in first half? What would be the possible spillover effect to the second half of the year? Maybe I invite Jessica first, then Alan.
Okay.
Um.
Let me answer the question first. As I mentioned, because of the COVID outbreak and the lockdown, our sales of Ruihong Xincheng Lot 167A deferred from March to June. Still, we get a very good response from the market, and then we sell all the units on the launch day. Actually, in the first half, our sales did not get any influence because of the COVID. For the rental side, I'm sending to-
Yeah.
Allan Zhang.
Yeah, sure. From the commercial properties, basically due to the COVID impact, we have been facing a lot of challenges, especially for the traffic flow and the rental sales. As mentioned before, we have been trying to provide a lot of effective support to our tenants, including rental concession, marketing promotion, and also the other effective supports. I'm quite happy to see that right now our traffic flow has been recovered to a bit more than 80%, and sales are more than 90%. We are at a quite healthy status now. The occupancy rate is also above 90%, as I mentioned before.
For next year, we believe that the city and also ourself, we have mastered all of the initiative and skillsets to have a very resilient and agile operation to cater to all of the challenges from external. We are quite confident that the recovery for second half will be even more significant comparing to the first half of this year.
Thank you, Jessica and Alan. Next question, maybe I'll invite Douglas. The question is on the escrow account regulation. Now that the government is focusing on. So for the CNY 13 billion cash on hand, how much is restricted cash? May I invite Douglas, please?
Putting out the CNY 13 billion, I would say around CNY 8.5 billion-CNY 9 billion would be free cash. Majority of the CNY 13 billion is cash that we can use.
Thank you. Another question is relating to financing as well. Can you share a bit more on the bank borrowings in the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023? Can you provide a breakdown between onshore and offshore? Also, what will be the refinancing plan going forward? Douglas, please.
Yeah. If you look at that, roughly CNY 11 billion of maturity in the second half of this year and first half next year. In the second half, there would be about CNY 3 billion, and then, first half next year is about CNY 8 billion.
The CNY 3 billion we have already either secure financing or refinance. I would say roughly half to about maybe CNY 1.5 billion is already done. What is remaining for the rest of this year is about maybe CNY 1.5, CNY 1.6 billion, some of which we have or always intended to repay rather than refinance. The outstanding amount of financing that we want to refinance or secure new loan is actually very low for the rest of this year.
The CNY 8 billion of next year is spread basically through the six months of next year. We have already started to work with some of the banks on financing. Of course, some of those with maturity, let's say in March, April, May. It's probably a bit too early right now for the banks to commit on some of the financing and refinancing.
We have already actually spoken to a number of the banks regarding next year's financing. If you look at what the group has done in the first half this year, we basically secured financing of about CNY 8 billion-plus in gross value through this very difficult first half period. We are quite confident that we can continue to get financing through various channels.
The split between onshore and offshore, I would say is probably about 65%-70% is offshore.
Okay. Thank you, Douglas. Sorry, one more question for you. There's a question on the CNY 5 billion loan from an associate. Can you please provide a bit more details on that?
That's actually not a loan. What it is is we drew cash, free cash from one of our JV project, along with our JV partner. It's basically sales proceeds that was already unpledged free cash that we drew out from the project company in the form of shareholders loan. That's why it's being classified as a loan, is we're basically owing the money to ourselves.
Okay. Thank you, Douglas. Next question is on the office in Shanghai. How do you see the office demand in Shanghai? And would corporate expansion slow down due to the Shanghai lockdown? Maybe I invite Alan.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. Office sector is apparently one of the big challenges we have been facing. On one hand, the supply has been maintained at quite high level, and the average number is more than 1 million square meters every year. On the other hand, the impact from the COVID is very significant.
Also, due to the slowing economic growth rate, a lot of companies choose to be very prudent in terms of their growth and expansion. If you look at the vacancy rate at the market, basically it goes at a quite high digit. Apparently, in the long run, the office market will be very diversified.
Some of the areas will take a long time to absorb the new demand. Luckily, most of our property are located in the CBD area and also in some very selected strategic locations. Because of this and because of the operation, we have been maintaining at a quite high occupancy rate. So far our mature property are basically above 95%. I would say that in the near term, the challenge for office supply is very big, especially for the CBD and for some specific areas.
I believe that Shanghai still can play a far more important role, has a lot of potential in the global horizon and also in the direction of the Yangtze River Delta integration mandate. That will create a lot of demand in the long run. Like I said, we still have very strong confidence in the long run for this office sector in Shanghai.
Thank you, Allan. Next question is on the land bank. What's the unsold attributable sellable land bank? Could you please share the progress on Foshan land resumption back in September 2021? May I invite Jessica?
As I mentioned before, we still have the total CNY 76 billion land bank for sales in the future. The attributable value for SOL is at CNY 42.6 billion. The land resumption backlog of Foshan is still in progress because we are negotiating with the air force for the height of our development. We expect to have the solution with the government by the end of this year. Yeah.
Thank you, Jessica. If you have time, I will read out two more questions. This one is on the share buyback. Can you please share with us on the share buyback plan as we announced in the last annual results? We see that the share buyback quota is not utilized very much at all. What should we expect? Maybe I invite Douglas, please.
Okay. Yeah, the amount of share buyback so far has not been. It wasn't a lot. I think it's a reflection of the relatively low liquidity of Shui On's trading in the secondary market.
Whenever we wanted to buy, there hasn't been a lot of stock available for us to buy. There are also, as some of you may know, some Hong Kong regulatory requirements on how a company can buy back the share, and there are certain price cap that we need to follow. Unfortunately, we have not been able to repurchase a larger volume. This of course as I mentioned earlier, we will still hope to have the opportunity to buy back more going forward.
This CNY 500 million program is not really a fixed program per se, that we need to spend X amount in in X date or X deadline. It really is something that we would look to continue to do from time to time. I can't really give you a a timeline on how much we will buy over what period of time.
Okay. Thank you, Douglas. The last question, it's relating to the overall China property market. May I seek your thoughts on what's the end game of China property sector in the longer term? What can developers and government do to transform themselves and the sector to a healthier state? Maybe I invite Chairman, please.
Yeah. I wish I have a crystal ball, but let me try and tackle your second part of the question. What can developers and government do to transform themselves and the sector to a healthier state? Actually the business model is already changing. The past decade has been on the high turnover, high leverage, high debt. I think that game is over. In the future, I'm sure there will be more demand on quality and service. Then for the government to try and make housing more affordable, they've been trying to promote the rental housing, but rental housing is not attractive for investment under current sort of rules.
If your investment is only yielding 1%-2%, I don't think it would be that attractive unless it's a sort of a policy that the state-owned enterprises have to do to provide for the low cost housing. I believe going forward, the government will have to look seriously at maybe the sort of homeownership scheme in Hong Kong, particularly with the private sector participation, which my other company have done quite a bit in Hong Kong. I think it's proven to be successful, and I hear that the incumbent government is going to bring it back. I think that's something that the mainland market can learn from.
I'm sure the government has already seen the problems of many other places on high housing prices that it run away, and then like Hong Kong, a lot of young people would be very frustrated. In the longer term, I do believe that there might be a twin track property market in China, where on one end for the low income group the government will have to do homeownership scheme or low rental housing. For the luxury sector or the mid low income, maybe the government would just have to allow the market to adjust itself to make sure that it will be within reach of the market. I think the market itself will regulate for sure.
The last part of the question, which, Luna did not read out, is what's possibility and impact of a property tax if rolled out? I do believe the property tax will come. From what I hear, it's not going to be, an affordable number. I think a lot of people would just treat it as part of the cost.
Okay. Thank you, Chairman.
This concludes our annual briefing today.
Thank you very much for your time, and thank you to everyone for joining us this evening.
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