SINGAPORE - Second-tier cities in China hold a great deal of potential for property development, said the head of Singapore's largest listed developer CapitaLand yesterday.

CapitaLand chief executive Liew Mun Leong told Channel NewsAsia that, despite Chinese government measures to cool property investment in the world's second-largest economy, he was on the lookout for " value properties" in China to grow the Singapore-based company.

He pointed to a 30-per-cent growth last year in tenant sales in second-tier Chinese cities such as Chongqing in Sichuan province, compared with 10-per-cent growth in Singapore.

Chongqing - the world's most populous city - had come up tops in more than 10 economic indicators among Chinese cities in 2011, Mr Liew noted

CapitaLand this week sealed its biggest ever single deal in China, with a development in Chongqing which Mr Liew said would be the company's fourth core Chinese market after Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. 

The S$4 billion project is a mixed development comprising a shopping mall and eight towers for residential, office and hotel use. Mr Liew added that the yet-to-be-named project in Chao Tian Men is the first large footprint for CapitaLand in western China. Lynda Hong