Good afternoon, dear analysts and investors. This is CRS Land. We are reporting you on the interim reports of 2020. Because of the pandemic, it's a pity that we cannot meet you face to face and report to you about our performance. Therefore, we're holding this virtual meeting. We think that we can still have a very good communication. Now, first of all, let me introduce the management with us today. Mr. Li Xin, our President.
Good afternoon.
Vice President, Mr. Zhang Dawei. Senior Vice President, Mr. Xie Ji. Senior Vice President, Mr. Yu Linkang. CFO, Mr. Guo Shiqing. At the meeting today, there will be two parts. First, the management will walk you through the business performance. After that, we will open the floor for questions. You are most welcome to join us via online to raise your question, and please press star one to wait. At the website, you can also enter your questions in the comment area so that we will take them afterwards. First of all, Mr. Guo Shiqing, our CFO, will walk us through the business performance.
Dear analysts and investors, good afternoon. I would like to take this opportunity and report to you about our interim results of 2020. In the first half, the overall environment has been very challenging, and there has been an increase in the returns to shareholders as well as the dividend by 3.2% up to RMB 884 million. The interim dividend also grew by 16.3%- 0.15%. You can see the net profit attributable to the shareholders is down by 3.5% to RMB 115 million.
Because of the pandemic, the fair value of investment property was down to about RMB 4.5 billion. When the stabilization occurred after the pandemic, everything will be back to the normal. We estimated that the accumulated sales was RMB 133.4 billion, up by 2.5% by the end of July. Because of the pandemic, there has been a slight decrease in the settlements as well as the rental income. However, through our combined efforts, as well as the implementation of a 2+X strategy, there had been a steady increase in the investment property, as well as the profit ratio. At the end of the first half, the core net profit was 18.6% and up by 0.9%, and the net profit attributable to shareholders was 25.7%, still high in the industry.
There has been a slight drop of sales for the investment property, down by 1.7% to RMB 36 billion because of the restoration of work, as well as the structural adjustment in some cities in terms of settlement. In the tier one cities, the unit price also dropped. The settlement unit price was down to RMB 12,289, and the unit cost down by RMB 8,372. In the first half, the investment property also went down by 12.5% in terms of rental income. The shopping malls, the income down by 8.9%. As for the office buildings, because of their sales promotion, the revenue went up by 5.8%. Hotels were also impacted by the pandemic, the business revenue down by 51%. We have, for example, for the fair value changes in Shanghai, in Hangzhou, Xiamen, Guilin, Chongqing, and Shanghai Times Square.
You can see all these figures in the report. We stick to our [prudential] policy and keep improving the utilization of cash. Therefore, you can see we actively repaid the RMB 10 billion perpetual debt earlier and this early redemption. We also actively managed the cash balance, which was only down by 4.4% than the end of last year. Interest-bearing debt was 13.6% higher, and now it is 45.9%, but still within the reasonable leverage area. In the first half, our structure continued to improve. The cash utilization was still low. As we said that we must maintain the adequate cash in hand in order to avoid the double high situation. Meanwhile, we can also improve the overall capital volume and improve the capital turnover.
In the first half, through our combined efforts in optimizing the debt structure as well as the early redemption of a perpetual debt, they were also issued the medium-term note at a lower cost. As of RMB 4 billion, weighted average cost was only 2.77%, therefore bringing the overall financing cost down to 4.26%. The foreign currency exposure further down to 6.6%, so there are less risks in terms of refinancing in the upcoming three years.
Our overseas overdebt distribution was very well. Let's look at our business performance. In the first half, we realized that the RMB 100 billion sales target, because of the pandemic, as well as the sales was smaller than the first half. The contract sales was down by 6.7% to RMB 110.8 billion. By the end of July, the overall contract sales was down by 2.5%. In tier one and tier two cities, having contributed 80% of sales.
Top five cities covers four cities in tier one cities. Top five cities already contribute over RMB 5 billion in total sales. They have been providing support and a guarantee to our sustainable growth. Shopping malls, as I said, because of the impact of pandemic, as we said during March, our results report, we are conquering the difficulties together with the tenants. In the first half, the overall rental income was down by 7.5% to RMB 3.97 billion. The rental situation was basically maintained level. The online and offline activities, the overall tenants increased by 15% than the end of last year to RMB 12.6 million, and the gross margin further improved to 8.4%. After the pandemic, things got stabilized, and the business was also resumed very quickly. In May, June, and July, the rental volume increased by 26%, 14%, and 29%.
The same-store growth also went up by 17%, 7%, and 21%. Rental income also increased by 18%, 15%, and 22%. Rental income at the same store increased by 8%, 6%, and 16%. We are holding 42 shopping malls. We hope that at end of August, our business will turn from a loss to profit. For those best performers in May, June, and July, in the seven luxury shopping malls, the increase was also 36%, 29%, and 44%. Let's look at bank reserve. Through the adjustment of our structure pace and the deployment, we further improved the land bank structure. We added 4.95 million sq m in our land bank, which is equivalent to the sellable resources of RMB 120 billion. Over 60% of the equity lands are located in the top three city clusters.
Meanwhile, we captured the opportunity in February and March and acquired more land during that time. In the second half, we'll continue acquiring more land in order to support future growth. In the first half, through our advantages in developing and running the city complexes, we acquired three shopping malls, which means GFA by 300,000 sq m. Two projects were acquired at the bottom price, one with the premium price of only 0.5%. The parent company further injected capital to us. In July, there were four injections in four projects. At the end of the reporting period, our total development land reserve has been holding 60.46 million sq m. In tier one, tier two cities, 67% of the lands are located there. In terms of investment property, we are holding 10.62 million sq m, in which 46% are shopping malls.
They are in tier one and tier two cities mostly, which is over 80% in the Eastern China, South China, and North China. By the end of June, we have entered into 62 cities, and we basically have completed the national deployment. In 25 key cities, we have over one shopping mall. During the reporting period, we continue with the City Municipal Upgrading System. In the first half, we've got one more project in Changsha. Now we are holding 19 projects, which is the 16.3 sq m, or the equity square meter is 8 million sq m. Now let's look at the X Business. The X Business is a very important part in the 2+X strategy in the company. There are three parts, the Synergy type, the Light -Assets part, as well as Innovation & Cultivation part.
Synergy part mainly focuses on the municipal upgrading, operating under construction, as well as the building business. The second part is about Light-A ssets, including the Light -Assets Commercial running, Property Management, and Entertainment culture. For the third one, it's about innovation, which includes the long-term renting, the Senior Caring Business, as well as the MixC projects. In the recent years, we have been developing this business in a sustainable manner. By developing high quality in our brand, we are able to win the very good reputation in the market. Maybe today, during the lunchtime, you have already heard about our announcement of a voluntary disclosure on the spinning and listing. Through our strategy, you can see our property management of [China Resources] Land as the commercial operation services may be split and got listed.
If they are completed, we will be able to support our future growth better. We will also guarantee that according to the listing rules, we will allocate the quota of sharing produced to our holders first. If there's any further information, we will let you know. Let's look at the future, our future business sales growth and business performance. In the second half, sellable resources, we have RMB 412.2 billion and 83% in tier one, tier two cities, 73% are residential. 6% of the reservable assets will be launched, and they are of high quality. Construction and certification has been following the schedule, we can guarantee the supply. In the second half, there will be RMB 250 million for new resources in tier three, tier four, 40% and 6%. We have confidence that we can hit the target of RMB 262 billion of sales.
In the upcoming three years, we have the unsettled sales revenue about RMB 230.4 billion, in which RMB 107 billion will be settled in the second half this year. Meanwhile, in the next three years, we will expect to have a 15% of our CAGR growth in our investment property. In 2020, our investment property will contribute RMB 12 billion and in 2025, we will have about over RMB 24 billion from 2021 to 2025. In 2025, we will have about RMB 15 billion in the investment property. In the shopping mall launching plan from 2021 to 2022, we are going to open 12 more shopping malls.
This will lay a good foundation of a rental income in the future. Currently, we have got land to reserve. In the future, we will have 120 shopping malls in which 92 will be held by ourselves. Light-A ssets will be exported by 2028, we will continue deploying our strategy in the shopping mall business and to go deeper and go broader. In the PowerPoint, you can see more details in the appendix, I won't elaborate too much. This is the end of the interim report. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Guo, for your very detailed presentation. Now I would like to open the floor for questions. Last time, some analysts that we didn't have time enough for the questions, this time we're going to leave more time for the investors for you to raise your questions. Now, I'd like to invite the first question. Just a reminder, if you wish to join us via the online, you can press star one to wait. Maximum two questions for each investor. The first question, please. CIC, Eric.
Mr. Zhang. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the first opportunity. Can you hear me? Right.
Clearly.
I have two questions for you. First of all, thank you very much and congratulations. A very solid and a very stable business performance in the first half. Two questions about the growth. In March, in terms of growth, you didn't talk too much and everything very qualitative tone. Now the pandemic is almost over and the business is resuming. Can you please elaborate a little bit more about the growth? In the PowerPoint, there are two slides which talk about sales. For example, in sales, I did the math. In the second half, for China Resources, at 36% sales, for us to hit the annual sales target.
Just want to know that if you look at the figures, there's a chance that you can sell more than your target, right? This is about sales. Another slide in the PowerPoint is from 2020 to 2022, your expectation. The sellable resources, I did the math as well, about 32% of the sellable resources, also a growth. Does that mean that in 2021, 2022, net profit will grow dramatically? These questions about growth. The second question is about the spinning and listing.
We already read the announcement. In the slide, you said that it is the property management plus the commercial operations. In my understanding, it is beyond the property management. Can you please explain a little bit what it is? I also noticed that in the presentation, you will provide the priority to the CRS Land shareholders for the new listing. Because we don't know more details about it, just can you please elaborate a little bit more? Thank you.
Thank you, Eric. Two questions. One is about our business performance as well as the growth expectation. The second one is about spinning. Let me take your second question first. About our business growth expectation, I would like to leave it to Mr. Xie, our Senior Vice President, to take it. About spinning and the listing. I agree that the capital market is concerned about it. For CRS Land, after the restructuring in 2008 until 2022, after 18 years of growth, CRS Land has grown itself from a pure developer to, in 2015, a comprehensive real estate developer. With two-wheels of a strategy. It has been about 10 years of growth already until now.
Along with the Da Chong Project and the Shenzhen Bay Project, these two completed projects, we are a developer as well as the operator of such properties, where you can see this is the value increase in every step of our business in the years. That's why when we consider about spinning and listing, we just want to release the whole potential of our business through listing, and the value is an accumulation of over 20 years of growth. We don't have any specific timetable for the listing, and we've got a PN15 application already on the 15th of August. In addition to assess land, releasing our value, this is only one of the goals.
Another goal is that through the listing, we have been supported and trusted by investors, and we really value the interest of our shareholders, particularly those long-term shareholders. We hope to increase their value. Therefore, when we're spinning and listing, when we do go for IPO, we will guarantee the priority and the quota to our existing shareholders. As for the specific information, perhaps you will have to wait a little bit, and please keep a close eye on our further information. Mr. Xie, my colleague, will take your first question.
Regarding the contract sales this year, we estimate that we can maintain this RMB 262 billion figure. This figure can be guaranteed because every month we look at our sales, we look at our supply. We also look at the trend as well as the changes in the market. This is a dynamic market, therefore we have to adjust and keep up with the market. This goal can be guaranteed. As Eric asked, I feel that our sales, this RMB 292 billion, perhaps we can oversell.
In the upcoming four months, we will launch the sellable resources really depends on our pace. We will launch these products one by one, somehow there will be difference between one city to another. For example, RMB 292 billion, on the one hand, this goal can be guaranteed, on the other hand, it is quite a neutral expectation. As for the contract sales in different regions, the major contributors are Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shenyang, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, Changchun, et cetera. Basically, the tier one cities and strong tier two cities. These are the major contributors. As for the settlement amount, Mr. Guo will answer this part.
Okay, slide 29 in the presentation. This is the settlement level resource. You can see in 2021, 2022, there will be a big increase because in some high energy cities in the past that the settlement was done very early and because of the margin. The settlement in terms of volume and settlement in terms of gross area, these two do not go together. The gross margin was also going down. In terms of our profit, it may not grow at the same proportion as the settled gross area did.
Okay. Thank you, management.
Shall I take the second question? Jason from JD.
Good afternoon, Mr. Li. Good afternoon, management. I'm Griffin from Citibank. Two questions for you. The first one. This year is the first year when we prepare another new Five-Year Plan. For CRS Land, you may adjust your strategy under this macro economy. How can you guarantee your sales and your performance? How to maintain your double-digit growth? This is the first question. The second question is that in the reports, we know that in May, June, July, the business was resuming. In the second half, under this internal circular economy, what will be the growth in the second half? Just now you mentioned about some investment properties, shopping malls, and there will be more investments in this area. Also you mentioned about your financials. Actually, we didn't get a very clear picture about these shopping malls as their returns. Can you please elaborate a little bit more? Okay.
Thank you, Griffin. You asked the three questions. The first one is about the 14th Five-Year Plan. What is our own plan? The second question is about our business performance. Based on the solid performance in May, June and July, what will be annual expectation? The third question is about overall investment properties. What will be the growth picture? You want our CFO to give you a clearer picture, right? Three questions. Okay. Let me take your first question about the 14th Five-Year Plan first. As for the business growth, Mr. Yu Linkang, our Senior Vice President, will take it.
The 14th Five-Year Plan, this national strategy. We in China Resources Land is also preparing our own plan, and this plan is not finalized yet. However, we do have conducted a lot of deliberation, lot of discussion, and we can also share with you some of the highlights in our discussions. First, from the macro picture, our economy, the whole industry, we think that the property market in China is a huge one still.
It is now into a very big consumption market as well, which is going through a transformation right now. There are two areas where you try to understand what is the consumption market. One is about residential side. We launched new products. Consumers are requiring more houses or rooms or apartments. This is for sure. Another area is about the upgrading of shopping malls. We have a very deep experience and a feeling on it, be it in tier one city, tier two cities, and tier three cities. As long as there's a good shopping mall, you have a good product, you have good services, consumers will be very willing to go. This is very obvious, and they would love to go. I'm not exaggerating, and I'm just describing. From the demand side, it is a very healthy market still.
Chinese economy, you may have heard a lot about China's economy recently in different discussions, in circular or international, what do you call it? The external and internal circular economy. Whatsoever, if you look at China's own economy, the domestic one, in the future, what is the potential? It is still a huge consumption market, and there's a huge amount of demand in the local market. In the next five years, China's economy will still have very stable, prudent, orderly, and steady growth. Another one, another area is about the property market, about RMB 16 billion of market size. We think this RMB 16 trillion of market size is already formed. This is a huge market. Whether it will continue to grow, however, we may not think it will definitely happen. There may be opportunity that it will maintain growth without much drop.
This market it is above 10 billion, above 10 trillion. It is huge already. It will maintain this size for a while. Under such circumstances, what we should think about is how to avoid, how to survive, and how to compete in this fierce market. The market is huge. The competition is also fierce. Basically, this is our understanding of the macro economy and the market. For China Resources Land, when I answered the first question, I said that China Resources Land from 2002, after the restructuring of the company, till in 2005, we launched the first MixC in Luohu, Shenzhen. It was the first transformation from a pure developer to a city complex developer and operator. Basically, it's what we call the two-wheel strategy, the residential plus commercial. We have been following this strategy for over 10 years.
The transformation succeeded. Today, for C RS Land, their dividend has our business growth is based on this successful transformation in 2005. In 2018, along with the completion of our Da Chong Project and the Shenzhen Bay Project, C RS Land further transformed itself from a comprehensive developer to a city complex investor, developer, and operator. It is about the municipal complexes it develops and it manages. It manages comprehensively. We have a development, we have a commercial property, we have leasing, we have education, we have senior caring. Our investment is about the municipal upgrading in property, in environment, in consumption upgrading, so on and so forth. We have built up our own core capability. This is the second successful transformation in C RS Land. 18 years of growth till now, we are looking at the future, the 14th Five-Year Plan.
That's why when we discussed about it, when we look back and look into the future, we think that our success in the past is because we have had a good strategy. We have a right strategy. We implemented the strategy firmly. That's why we have wide recognition in the capital market. We will not change our strategy quite a lot. We will firmly stick to our strategy of investing, maintaining our business position, strategic position in the municipal investment development and operations. As I said that we are the city complex developer, operator, and investor. We have already built up our own core capabilities. We have the capabilities to realize the further scale growth and operations of our properties. If you look at our CAGR growth after 18 years, what is the story behind, i s that we have the core capabilities. We have very good foundation.
In the future, how can we improve our capabilities even better? This will be what we have to think about. As for the city landmark investments and operations, such as the MixC World, and so on and so forth. These are the major city complexes. During the 13th Five-Year Plan, our business growth enjoyed a great lot of benefits from these landmark projects. The next one is about the municipal upgrading and renovation projects. It also involves investments, developments, and operations. We did the Da Chong Project. It was a renovation project, the biggest one in China. This is a brand new city. This is a wholly new city. It just started a new chapter to us. For the renovation, total area is about 16 million sq m already, and equity area is about 8 million sq m already.
We have been able to acquire those projects through, recently, our senior management visited different cities and provinces. When talking about renovation projects, when talking about our experience in such renovation projects, we have won high recognition from our partners and peers. A lot of governments send out delegations to Da Chong, to Nanshan, trying to understand what are our best practices and our experience. In terms of renovation, I believe that there will be more growth opportunities for China Resources Land. The fourth capability, in my opinion, is a very unique one. That is such as the gymnasium, the stadium, and exhibition galleries, and so forth. This is what CRS can do to invest, to operate. From the first stadium for the university, that was our first project. Now we have developed and operating seven such big stadiums.
They are all of high quality, built very quickly, running very well. In the long term, we have already formed our own capabilities of investing, developing, and operating such major stadiums. In different provinces and cities, local governments asked for us to do it for them, and there are more and more such opportunities. I believe that this capability can also provide more chances for us to acquire quality resources. The next one is about IT business. It is based on our operations to build up an ecosystem. For example, long-term leasing, senior caring, industrial, as well as education. These are the supplementary or supporting functions so that we can improve our overall development and operations capabilities. Based on the 13th Five-Year Plan and looking to the 14th Five-Year Plan, we will focus ourselves on the five areas.
Number one, we will continue focusing on the three core businesses in city complex development operations to grow even better and improve the quality to a higher level in terms of the complex development, shopping mall development, as well as the stadium development and the operations. This is the first area we will focus on. The second one is that we will continue strengthening our capabilities, as I mentioned before. The number three is that we will go even deeper to the different business circles or business clusters to go even deeper in our existing deployment. Next one is let's stay to the bottom line, our financial bottom line, so that we can guarantee the secured operations as well as a healthy growth. Number five is the investment.
We look for the balanced investment in returns and in growth so that we can guarantee that we can access the right resource. Overall, these are some highlights regarding the 14th Five-Year Plan. After September, the 14th Five-Year Plan will be amended and finalized. I believe that we will follow these directions to start a new chapter in the company. Overall, during the 14th Five-Year Plan, the management has full confidence to manage the company well and to continue to be the best performer in the industry. Mr. Yu will take your question about the business growth.
Okay. Good afternoon, investors. Remember that in March, we shared with you about our business growth and the business plan. I'm very happy today to share with you more information, particularly about the past few months. In March, when we talked about the forecast this year, it seems that our performance is better than expected. You have already heard about the figures. From May, we already restored our business. For example, the same-store sales. Basically, in May, our performance was at the same level as last July.
In July this year, our overall business performance was similar to what it was in last July. In July, the impact during the pandemic period has been made up, has been caught up, and our performance is better than expected. If there isn't any second wave or third wave, we have confidence that we can maintain such a growth momentum from August to December. Our confidence comes from four areas. Number one, the countermeasures during the pandemic period. We have accumulated very good operation system in the past 18 years.
We have also prepared contingency plans, and all our employees are trained how to react, how to respond. Our tenants are also managed well. Over 17,000 people from the first day when the pandemic outbreak, there was no infection, there was no confirmed case. This shows how well we have been managing our staff, our tenants. This gives more confidence to our consumers and our partners. This is about our team's capability. The second one is that our medium to high-end positioning of the company during the countermeasures, during the pandemic period, we have been able to strengthen our capability to respond to such pandemic situations. In those luxury brands featured shopping malls, we own the most number of such luxury brands. Currently, we are working together over 90 international brands and running over 2,000 stores in our shopping malls. These figures are the most.
You know that this COVID-19 situation brought, actually, an opportunity to us. A lot of, buyers who would like to go buy in the overseas markets, now they are buying locally. As Mr. Guo said, the international brands, those high-end brands in the shopping malls, our sales increased much, much more than other shopping malls. In July, there was a 44% of our growth. This also gives us not only growth in business, but more confidence. Of course, this increase was very high during the pandemic period, but it won't be gone after the pandemic. A lot of consumers, they came to us, they knew about our services, they knew they were connected to our membership programs. I believe that most of the consumers will stay with us in our stores. The third one is that we have been building up our own membership system.
Among all the shopping malls in China, we are perhaps the first to set up such a membership system. Till now, we have over 10 million. Remember, we have 12.6 million members already. During the pandemic period, our member system did help us greatly. With the membership system, we were able to communicate to our consumers directly. According to the statistics, the consumption from such existing members increased greatly. Comparing with the same period last year, there was a 10% of increase among the member consumers. This is perhaps a very big advantage we have. Every year, we are expanding our membership system by allocating more resources for maintenance of such a system. Even though this pandemic has brought great impact, however, our leasing rate has not been impacted that much. Maybe just 1 percentage point.
This is because for all these years, we have been treating our tenants as partners, but not pure landlord and a tenant relationship. In the past 10 years, over 10 years, we have been setting up such a good relationship with our tenants. During the pandemic, we also did something to help them. For example, the rental concession to the tenants. We are helping each other, and our relationship is even closer. We trust each other better, and our leasing rate has been maintained, which will be helpful for us to further improve our sales. Based on what I said before, in the second half, we will have more confidence in delivering a better performance in our business growth.
When we communicated in March, I said that we would try our best to maintain the same level of business. Now we are expecting a single-digit growth. I hope that we can hit 5% of a growth in our sales and in our business revenue. Through better management in the company, we hope to reduce the cost and improve efficiency accordingly. In terms of our gross margin, we can also maintain a high gross margin performance so that our profit can also keep improving. These are the points I want to share with you. Thank you.
Just now, when we talk about the prospect, I was a little bit quick when I talk about the financials. Let me repeat. Currently, based on our calculation, in 2020, our office buildings and hotels and so forth, the rental revenue will be RMB 12.1 billion. I calculated that if it is a 15% of our growth, by 2025, we will have RMB 21.1 billion.
If it is 20% for growth in 2021, the rental revenue will be RMB 30 billion. Why that? Because we hope that we can maintain 15% of our growth, but 20% is also possible. Because we are opening more shopping malls in the following five to six years, they will be ready to operate. As for the office buildings, we have a lot of office buildings. For the hotels, we have over 20 new hotels to be launched. In the future, the rental income, we expect that there will be high growth. For the shopping malls and office buildings, the revenue growth will be, conservatively speaking, 15%. By 2025, if it is 20% of growth, that will be RMB 30 million. If the gross margin is 50%, we will have RMB 15 billion of gross profit.
We are expecting about RMB 15 billion-RMB 20 billion of gross margin. This growth will be very stable. During the 14th Five-Year Plan, we can estimate in this way, plus the same-store growth for the self-holding properties. We have very good expectation on this segment. It's very stable.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. A lot of information. Thank you for taking the question.
Next question is from DBS, Carol.
Good afternoon, Annie. Good afternoon, Mr. Li. Good afternoon, management. I have two questions for you. The first one is about the land reserve. What are the channels of land acquisition? In the public market, in the first half, you spent about RMB 11 billion on land acquisition, about 30% of our total spending. What about the non-public market? What will be the gross margin for those non-public market and land acquisition? I also noticed that you have 19 renovation projects ongoing.
Many in Guangdong, 16 of them are in Guangdong province, Mr. Li said. You are very successful in the municipal renovation projects in different cities, and now other government continue focusing on Guangdong because you've got advantages here, you've got experience here, or are you going to expand your expertise to cover other provinces and the cities as well? The second question is very simple one. It's about the dividend payout, dividend policy. Even though your core profit margin didn't grow a lot, your dividend policy, what will be the dividend policy this year? Thank you.
Thank you, Carol. Let me take your two questions. The first one is about land reserve. First of all, investment. For a developer, investment is one of the core capabilities. If you look at the ranking, perhaps it will be the most important one or the second most important one. Investment capability. It's true that from the very beginning till now, if you look at the industry gross margin, the land price is going up. The selling price versus land price, this ratio has been declining.
This declining trend, comparing with two, three years ago, even four years ago, this down going trend basically will be normal. This is very obvious in our adjustment. From an investment point of view, you have to diversify your channels, including the land acquisition. We go to the public market for land acquisition in the targeted cities so as it fits for our philosophy of a quick turnover. If it is in the mainstream market, we have to participate in the project for land acquisition.
In terms of a diversified land acquisition channels, we do have our own advantages, including the renovation projects, including the stadium construction, and operations in the past. We were able to acquire land for those purposes very successful. This capability will also be utilized in the future projects, in new renovation projects. We can also mobilize our resources to create such opportunities as including the TOD. The land acquisition will bring more unique opportunities for us to access the special resources. In the first half, the gross margin of land acquisition was high.
Overall gross margin, Mr. Guo already calculated. It is not the final figure yet. It's just a rough figure. Overall, the land acquisition gross margin, because this is a zero premium price, of course, the price is much better than in the auction market. In the first half, the total land acquisition number is RMB 38.8 billion by the end of June. The equity land. Just a minute. Mr. Xie, can you talk about the land acquisition a little bit?
In the first half, the total land acquisition is RMB 58.9 billion, including the equity land acquisition in the first half. In the first quarter, when the pandemic was very serious, we saw it as a very good window of time, and we wanted to capture this good timing. In Beijing, Shenyang, Suzhou, as well as other cities, we saw good opportunities for land acquisition and very good resources. In Q2, there was only a warming up in some cities in the land market. Gross margin, net margin was down at that time. We didn't simply follow the market, but chose to be selective.
We stick to our principle of ROI orientation. Currently, in the first half, Q1 and Q2, including what Mr. Li Xin said, through diversified channels from last half till the first half this year, we mobilized the different resources and diversified our channels of land acquisition. In Shenyang, the project is now undergoing. Let me share with you a little bit more about the land acquisition. RMB 58.9 billion, number six in the industry, number nine by the equity land acquisition. Q1 was the best season and best timing for us. Because of the pandemic, we saw a very short period of time of a good timing, good window there in Beijing, Suzhou, and Shenyang in some core cities. We acquired very good, high quality of land resources. They will be expected to turn into sales.
In Q2, in some hot cities, the land price went up very quickly, and the land market was very hot. During the second quarter, we didn't get involved a lot. Instead, we're sticking to our own ROI strategy. We were very prudent in acquiring land resources in Q2. On the 20th of August, we have already acquired 40 projects. The contract price was RMB 73.2 billion, with a total floor area, GFA, is 6.57 million sq m. The average land cost was RMB 9,661, basically in tier one and tier two cities. Over 80% of such resources are in tier one and tier two cities. This basically fits for the three guiding lines, as we said in the beginning of the year. In Q3 and Q4, we believe that it will be possible that we see more windows and more opportunities for M&A.
Based on what we have acquired in the first half, the overall gross margin will be higher. The land acquisition is about 40%. About dividend. I believe that this is a common concern for our shareholders and investors. Each year, we talk about a dividend policy. China Resources Land has been returning to our shareholders very seriously in the past five years. You can see along with our business growth, CRS has been improving our dividend policy prudently each year, from 2014 till now, from 27% to last year, 35%.
We can see the China Resources Land management has been taking the reward to our investors and shareholders very seriously. This year, our business has been growing steadily and healthily. The expectation of our business performance, however, we have confidence to deliver our targets. Therefore, we have decided to adjust our dividend policy as approved by the board. This year, they will be 2 percentage points higher as a 37% as dividend policy to reward our shareholders, particularly those long-term shareholders.
Thank you very much for your support.
Thank you very much, Mr. Li.
Next question, Ryan from JP Morgan.
Good afternoon, management. I'm Ryan from JP Morgan. Two questions. First one is about development projects, property. In March, we looked at your strategy in the development property. At that time, the fee efficiency was not very high. I just want to know what is the situation now? What measures are you taking in order to improve your performance in the existing cities? In the first half, even though the business performance was not bad, it's satisfying.
However, if you look at your top 10 developers and your sellable resources versus what you have sold, and they're quite similar. From KPI point of view, from land acquisition point of view, your risk strategy, what can you do to improve your market share in existing cities? Second one, can you please share with us about your shopping malls, their retailing revenue. Among this retailing revenue, how much is from the luxury brands? As Mr. Yu said, the 90 brands at over 200 stores. What is the contribution from them?
Because we have already felt that CRS Land has got a lot of luxury brands, but we don't know how much they contribute in the retailing volume, the sales volume, or sales revenue. Just now, you also mentioned your profit expectation. At the beginning of the year, you talked about the low double-digits growth. Now for the rental, you're expecting 15%-20% of CAGR growth. For the development business, the management said that it will be 10% of CAGR growth. Combine these two together, it means that there will be 13%-15% of CAGR growth. Will this be an indicator in your 14th Five-Year Plan? Thank you.
Thank you. Your first question is about development property, the land acquisition strategy. I will take this part. Mr. Zhang Dawei, our Vice President, will add later. Second question about leasing business, Mr. Yu Linkang will take it. For the development property, just as Ryan said, CRS Land, we have entered into 85 cities and several hundreds of projects.
It's true that the contribution from each project may not be that high, and so we don't have any outstanding cities among all of them. We have already expected it to be so, and we have also realized that our city development is too scattered, not deepened enough. At the beginning of the year, we set up an overall strategy to focus on the strengthening, including the land acquisition. Actually, it covers two things. The first one is, in order to promote a deepening, it needs time, it is a process. We have realized that this is a problem, and we have to act right away. This is the time. After all, we have a very good city deployment base, which is very helpful for our future growth.
Secondly, in terms of investment and deployment, we have to focus on the core cities and high energy cities in order to deploy our developments. From the beginning of the year till now, if you look at our investment city now, you can see very clearly that we are shifting more and more to the core cities, to the strategic cities. No matter whether it is a development or property or investment property, we are moving more and more to the core cities.
In the future, in terms of our management structure, we will also adjust and reform our existing system so that we can optimize these cities, so that we can boost the output from one single city, each one of the cities. No matter how many resources you have, the market is so big and you still have limited resources. For the 14th Five-Year Plan, we will focus on the deepening and the strengthening. This shows we are problem-oriented, results-oriented, and deliverables-oriented.
Thank you very much. Let me add a little bit. Sorry. As I said that we are adjusting our deployment and structure. We will focus more on the high-energy cities or the power cities, particularly the three city clusters in China, the core cities. You can see that from the beginning of the year till now, our land acquisition has been following this strategy. Secondly, from the cities themselves, there are three city clusters in China, and to some extent, we're also looking into the potential of each of these clusters. Meanwhile, we're also strengthening the capabilities in some selected core cities. The third one, in the core cities, we will make more efforts in development.
In terms of investment, we will also cast more importance to that and make more efforts in investment. We will deploy more shopping malls. For example, in some core cities, tier one cities, we can deploy more MixC shopping malls. In some of the high-energy cities or the power cities, we will also allocate more resources. From project investment point of view, we will continue adjusting our own strategy and the deployments. Okay. About leasing properties, Mr. Li, please.
Ryan asked about the international brands and their sales. Actually, we didn't calculate how much they contribute in the overall sales. Basically, around 40%, I can assure you. Because in our positioning, we focus on the luxury brands in the MixC cities. In our eight MixC cities, they contributed about 40% or above.
In each of the MixC, those brands also contribute about 40% of the sales revenue. The significance is not only in its own sales, but also it will bring along the traffic in the shopping mall, as well as the overall sales in the shopping mall. We have seen developers in Mainland China, they have commercial buildings, they have shopping malls, they are also operators, no doubt. In this market segment, we are the leader. Therefore, we will focus on two areas. For those shopping malls, which you can see we have fulfilled our positioning, we will try to enrich such brand portfolio.
Secondly, since we have new projects to be launched one by one in the future, we will continue cooperating with our partners for the new shopping malls. We hope that we continue to be the leader in this market segment, so that we can attract a greater number of such luxury brands. When I talk about growth is also a very important consideration for us. We have confidence that after 2021, we can restore to the two-digit growth in this market segment. 15% of growth in sales revenue and the sales volume. Thank you.
Thank you, management.
Even though we have prepared more time for Q&A, time just flies. I would like to take the last question online. UBS, John Lam . John, please.
Thank you, Annie. Thank you, management. Two questions. The first one, in your commercial operations capability, I don't see any competitor in China for you. That's why you have a very good negotiation capability when you talk about cooperation with partners online, offline. Talk about this. Tencent set up an e-community retailing.
Maybe in the future, there will be more such corporations. I just want to know. The second one is about the shareholding, including the IPO, will there be more [cooperations]? Last question about the dividend. Management says that you're going to increase the dividend payout ratio by 2%. It is because your rental income increased. If you can realize the RMB 30 million rental income by 2025 with EBITDA of the RMB 15 billion, is it possible that your dividend payout ratio will also continue to growth? Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. About online, offline. First, from the industrial trend point of view, the real estate technology or technology-empowered real estate, this is a trend. The shopping malls, if you look at their consumers, they are post the 1980s and post the 1990s.
Very often we discussed about this phenomenon. After the stores are closing after 9:00, 10:00 in the evening, at night, what activities do they do? Very often you can see people see them that there was the hike of online sales at 11:00 or 12:00 midnight. For us, for the commercials, so we have to think about the combination of online and offline. This is a strategic consideration, no concrete action yet. For the 14th Five-Year Plan, we are expecting to take some actions in this regard. Therefore, in terms of retailing cooperation, there can be some equity cooperation, but so far there isn't any arrangement for that.
From a China Resources Land point of view, be it a development project or the commercial project during the 14th Five-Year Plan, the real estate technology, the improvement of management, as well as the value improvement, definitely we will continue to think about it and prepare actions for it. This is about your first question. The second question is about dividend. The confidence why we are paying more, actually, we didn't think it in this way, as you said, to calculate the 2 percentage point, where is it from? To be honest, these 2 more percentage points is from our prudent and stable business performance so far, as well as our confidence of our future business growth. That's why we increase it from 35%- 37%. I believe that in the future, this will be our strategy. This will be our policy for our dividend payout.
At different times, different stages of a business, we will review and consider the dividend policy in order to reward our CRS Land shareholders, particularly those long-term shareholders, for their support and confidence. Since this is the last question, I just want to make one more comment. It's true that this year the situation has been very, very special, and nobody had expected such a pandemic at the beginning of the year. It is also true that the whole world was in shock. For the industry, it is in shock as well. It has been a very hard time for all of us. If you look at the total sales in China, it's been going down, and the retailing volume is also going down. That's why I believe that everybody has been working very hard, and CRS Land is also working very hard.
It's only that perhaps we are a little bit better than others. In the future, such uncertainties will continue to exist, and the pandemic is not fully over. There are still a lot of changes in the world economy. In the future, the uncertainties will bring new pressure and challenges to our management. I just want to ask all our analysts and investors to trust the China Resources Land management. We always prepare ourselves well to respond to the market. We hold the right mentality, and we hope that this year we can reward our shareholders and those who trust us with better performance. Thank you.
Once again, thank you very much, management, for your very detailed and informative communications. As I know that there are other results announcements by other companies, and our friends may be in a rush to others. This is the end of our results announcement. Once again, thank you very much for your time. We hope the pandemic can be over very soon, so that we can sit face-to-face and talk to each other face-to-face. Thank you.