Vanke profits more than double in 2007

China Vanke Co<000002><200002>, the nation's largest property developer by market value saw its 2007 profit more than doubled due to remarkable increases in both residential prices and sales of apartments, the company said in a preliminary earnings report on Thursday.

Its net income increased to RMB 4.84 billion (US$685 million) in 2007, or RMB 0.73 a share, from an adjusted RMB 2.30 billion or RMB 0.39 a year earlier, the report showed, and sales shot up 98.3% year-on-year to RMB 35.5 billion from RMB 17.9 billion.

The company sold apartments with total floor area of 6.14 million square meters worth of RMB 52.4 billion in 2007, compared with 3.23 million square meters worth of RMB 21.2 billion in 2006. The average selling price of its residential property stood at RMB 8,532 per sq meter last year, up 29.73% from a year earlier.

Vanke will release a full earnings statement tomorrow.

A-shares of the Shenzhen-listed company surged up 9.6% to RMB 23.5 on Wednesday when the stock market rose by 4.45% spurred by a Fed interest rate cut.