(Yicai Global) July 1 -- Fifty Chinese cities combined to rake in CNY2 trillion (USD291 billion) in land transfer tax over the first half of this year, up CNY200 million (USD29 million) from the same period a year earlier with Hangzhou leading the way again.

The land market was sluggish in January and February as property developers struggled to borrow money, Centaline Property's Chief Analyst Zhang Dawei told Yicai Global, citing data collected by his firm's research center. Some cities began to recover in April and this continued and expanded to other regions throughout the second quarter, he added.

Hangzhou, where local e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding is building a new global headquarters worth USD975 million, collected CNY144.5 billion (USD21 billion) in land transfer tax over the period. Other recent construction has been pushing the figure up year on year and it crossed the CNY200 billion annual milestone in 2017 and collected CNY250 billion through all of last year, leading all Chinese cities.

Second place over the first half of this year was Wuhan, a new first-tier city that pulled in CNY95 billion, while Beijing came third with CNY93.3 billion. Suzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing, Ningbo, Shanghai, Hefei and Zhengzhou filled out the top 10.

A slow property market in third- and fourth-tier cities is pushing developers toward first- and second-tier metropolises, Zhang said, adding that stricter regulations in the larger cities is failing to put off buyers.

Editors: Dou Shicong, James Boynton