Mao Daqing, vice president of China Vanke Co Ltd.

Vanke vows to use environmentally friendly construction methods

BEIJING: China Vanke Co, the country's biggest property developer by market value, said on Monday its 2009 profit rose 32 percent to 5.33 billion yuan ($776 million), thanks to soaring real estate sales and prices last year.

Due to the rebound in China's real estate sector last year, Vanke's contracted sales hit 63.4 billion yuan, the company said in a statement. And it expects sales to rise at least 20 to 30 percent in 2010.

Vanke shares, which have fallen 13 percent this year compared with a 7 percent drop in the CSI 300 Index, climbed 0.1 percent on Monday to close at 9.44 yuan in Shenzhen.

"Selling only decorated, environment-friendly homes built in a highly industrialized way is Vanke's strategic focus for 2010," Mao Daqing, vice-president of China Vanke Co Ltd, told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

All these efforts, Mao said, are aimed at reducing energy consumed in the building process and to improve operational efficiency, which are the company's competitive strengths compared to its rivals.

Industry statistics show that decorating a 90 square meter apartment will produce 2 tons of garbage, with half of them being non-biodegradable. But uniform decoration by property developers could cut this waste by more than half.

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The benefits of building homes in a highly industrialized way are also similar. According to Vanke's calculation, the construction of a 19-story building needs 24 months in the traditional way, but the time limit could be shortened to 20 months through industrialized methods. And it could save 60 percent of water usage and reduce construction waste by 80 percent.

"China Vanke plans to produce 1 million sq m of residential apartments through highly industrialized methods this year, among which one fifth will be constructed in Beijing," Mao said.