China’s property investment grew 10.5% last year, down from the 19.8% rise in 2013, and record high housing inventories will likely weigh down the real estate sector this year, exacerbating a slowdown in the wider economy that saw gross domestic product (GDP) grow at its slowest pace in 24 years. Property investment directly accounted for 14.9% of China’s GDP last year, down from 15.1% in 2013. “It will not be a surprise to see property investment slow to single-digit growth this year as the industry is suffering serious overcapacity due to explosive expansion in the past few years,” said Qi Jingmei, Senior Researcher at the State Information Center (SIC). China had a record stockpile of 621.69 million square meters of unsold property by the end of last year, when full-year property sales fell 7.6% to 1.2 billion sq m. Property sales revenue dropped 6.3% last year to CNY7.6 billion, compared with a rise of 26.3% in 2013. Many small developers could face bankruptcy. Despite some signs of a recovery from the downturn, developers and investors are concerned about how deeply President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive will impact the industry. But Zhu Zhixin, Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), dismissed concerns about a property market crisis, the South China Morning Post reports.