Russia has received signals from the United States that it is ready to continue mediation on the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday in response to remarks of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump said in an interview on Wednesday that he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal that would end the conflict.
Peskov pointed out that Russia "regrets" the latest escalation in the Middle East, which it said is preventing the U.S. from focusing on its role as a mediator in stalled Ukraine peace negotiations.
Peskov also stated that Russia has received signals from the U.S. through established communication channels, indicating that the U.S. intends to continue playing a mediating role on the Ukraine issue after resolving the problems it is facing.
In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, Trump said that he believes that the conflict between Ukraine and Russia will come to an end during his term in office, and Putin is ready to reach an agreement as soon as possible to end the conflict. Trump also said that he thought this conflict should have been resolved long ago.
US sends signals to continue mediation on Ukraine conflict: Peskov
China's real estate market witnessed positive changes in the first half of the year as supportive property policies continued to take effect, an official with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.
With home prices in major cities stabilizing, unsold housing inventory declined and second-hand home transactions remained active, Mao Shengyong, deputy director of the NBS, said at a press conference in Beijing, adding that policy adjustments and optimization measures introduced across the country have gradually delivered results, contributing to an improving property market.
Data showed that since March, the month-on-month sales prices of both newly built commercial homes and second-hand homes in first-tier cities have risen for four consecutive months, Mao said.
The inventory of unsold commercial housing also continued to decline. By the end of June, the floor space of unsold commercial housing nationwide had fallen 0.9 percent year on year, with the pace of decline widening by 0.5 percentage points from the previous month, he said.
The inventory has registered year-on-year declines for four straight months.
And the second-hand housing market remained active. In the first half of the year, the floor space of online-registered second-hand home transactions increased 10.2 percent year on year, 2.5 percentage points faster than the growth recorded in the January-May period.
"As China's real estate market continues to readjust, profound changes are taking place in both the structure and overall scale of property transactions. The traditional market pattern, which was driven mainly by sales of newly built homes, is rapidly shifting toward one featuring both new and second-hand home transactions. Second-hand home sales have become an important part of the housing market. According to online registration data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the transaction area of second-hand homes is now roughly equivalent to that of newly built homes. When combining online-registered transactions of both new and second-hand homes, total transaction volume in the past three months has recorded positive growth continuously. Overall, the supply-demand relationship in the real estate market is gradually improving, and market expectations have continued to recover," said Mao.
Property market sees positive changes in H1
