http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2700505

China plans to order many of its largest state-owned enterprises out of the real estate business to help cool urban housing price rises, the Xinhua News Agency said yesterday. The plan is a potential blow to many state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that rely on property investments to pad out their earnings. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, or SASAC, would require 78 centrally administered SOEs whose core business was not property development to withdraw from the business, spokesman Du Yuanquan told a media conference. Many Chinese SOEs have property arms and can use their connections to get access to government land sales, yielding strong returns when other business units are flagging. China's largest steel mills often use their property units to help get better returns on their construction steel output. Sixteen SOEs would be allowed to stay in real estate.