BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Gemdale Corp., China's third largest real estate developer, said Saturday its first-half net profit dropped 61 percent year-on-year to 480 million yuan (74.96 million U.S. dollars) amid the government tightening.

Meanwhile, revenue stood at 5.16 billion yuan in the first half of the year, down 41 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The company said the sharp declines were mainly due to the fact that a large portion of its property projects will be completed in the fourth quarter, and some of its property sales have been unsettled during the accounting period, the statement said.

Its property sales in the first six months totaled 4.84 billion yuan, down 43.02 percent year-on-year, or 354,600 square meters in terms of floor space, down 52.29 percent year-on-year, it said.

But the company still has another 2.42 million square meters -- worth 30 billion yuan by contract value -- of property sales awaiting clearance, it noted.

While specializing in providing commercial residential housing, the company saw an increase of 109.3 percent in commercial residential housing sales in the first half and expected the floor space for its inventory to reach 3.38 million square meters in the second half, it added.

The company said it will offer more middle and small-sized apartments and reasonable prices to ensure stable sales as the government will continue to maintain a tight monetary policy in the second half and extend its purchase limits to more cities to cool the red-hot property market.

Earnings per share stood at 0.11 yuan, a decrease of 59.26 percent year-on-year, while the total assets stood at 84.38 billion yuan at the end of June, an increase of 15.88 percent from the end of last year, according to the statement.