China's central bank is drafting proposals to set up real estate investment trusts (REITs), as part of the government's efforts to ease the cash constraints of property developers, officials said yesterday.

"We are formulating a plan on REITs and inviting views from other arms of the administration," Huo Yingli, deputy director in the financial market department of the People's Bank of China, told a news conference by the State Council Information Office yesterday in Beijing.

Chinese developers now tend to rely on commercial banks as the primary source of funds.