A man rides a bicycle in front of the construction site of a residential complex in Kolkata
India's housing regulator has tightened lending norms governing housing finance companies, a move likely to hurt borrowers across sectors, the agency said on its Website.
The National Housing Bank has mandated housing finance firms to keep aside 0.4 per cent of the total outstanding loans, excluding individual housing loans, by September 2011.
The new rules also limit the amount a person could borrow against property to 90 per cent where the value of the property is less than Rs 20,00,000. There was no limit earlier.
All other loans against property have been capped at 80 per cent of the property's value.
Afghan women wearing Burqa look at carpets in Kabul November 19, 2001. In a dimly lit room at the back of an Afghan house, 21-year-old Zahara is crouched on a plank of wood weaving a large carpet on a loom that she was able to buy using a microfinance loan of $1,100
Zahara started weaving carpets when she was 10 and did not go to school, but the loan from non-profit development group BRAC allowed her to start her own business about 18 months ago and she has since taken out two more loans of $330 each.
More than 1.5 million loans worth $831 million have been given out in the past seven years, said the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA), which was set up by the government in 2003 to coordinate the sector.
An investor checks stock information at an electronic board at a brokerage house in Hefei, Anhui province
China's key stock index closed down 1.7 per cent on Tuesday to the lowest closing level in nearly three months, extending the previous session's nearly 2 per cent drop in the wake of Saturday's surprise interest rate hike.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dropped to 2,733.0 points, with the fall led by financials and property shares on concern that China will ramp up monetary tightening to fight inflation, potentially hurting the sectors' earnings.
The market is also suffering from a seasonal, year-end liquidity shortage, reflected by the benchmark money market rate heading for the highest level in three years.
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