BANGKOK: Occupancy rates at Bangkok hotels are at about a third of expectations after weekend violence, a tourism group said on Thursday, with the stock market expected to fall when it re-opens on Friday after a holiday.

BEIJING: China on Thursday raised mortgage rates and down payment requirements to cool the country's red-hot property market.

The official Xinhua news agency, citing the outcome of a meeting of the State Council, announced the following measures:

-- The down payment on first homes of more than 90 square metres rises to 30% from 20%.

KUALA LUMPUR: The price of China’s residential and commercial real estate in 70 cities rose 11.7% in March from a year earlier, according to foreign news reports that cited data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics leading to a fall in the number of new mortgages in one of the world’s largest economy.

KUALA LUMPUR: YTL Corp Bhd’s wholly-owned subsidiary, YTL Hotels & Properties Sdn Bhd has acquired Niseko Village (pictured), a winter and summer destination located in Hokkaido, Japan for ¥6 billion (RM224 million).

KUALA LUMPUR: GuocoLand (Malaysia) Bhd has launched its latest 2-storey terraced homes Ebony Parkhomes (pictured) at its Emerald Rawang township in Rawang, Selangor.

KANGAR: The Malaysian Malay Chamber of Commerce (DPMM) Perlis Chapter has urged the government to stop the Variation of Price (VOP) implementation which it says is oppressive on contractors.

President Fauzi Hassan said that although VOP was implemented following a decrease in steel prices, the cost for other materials including cement and sand continued to increase.

KUCHING: The Sarawak Land and Survey Department has clarified that all genuine native customary rights (NCR) land within the vicinity of Kampung Stenggang in Bau near here is excluded in the provisional lease (PL) issued to a plantation company.

GEORGE TOWN: Island Golf Properties Bhd (IGP), a subsidiary of the state-owned Penang Development Corp (PDC), which operated the Bukit Jambul Country Club (BJCC), suffered heavy losses and barely made profits over the past few years, which prompted the state government to outsource the management and operations of the club.

Hitting in Sarawak