SINGAPORE - A healthy set of second-quarter results gave a slight boost to CapitaRetail China Trust (CRCT) unit prices on Thursday.

The real estate investment trust (reit) owns 10 shopping malls across six cities in China, including Beijing and Shanghai.

CRCT units closed 3.5 cents higher at $1.615 on Thursday as it posted a distribution per unit (DPU) of 2.59 cents for the three months to June 30, 8.8 per cent higher than in the preceding year.

Distributable income rose 18.7 per cent to $21.3 million for the period while net property income jumped 29.5 per cent from the preceding year to $34.2 million.

The reit manager said the performance was due partly to strong growth at its multi-tenanted malls, plus added contributions from new and upgraded malls.

Mr Tony Tan, chief executiv of the reit manager, said CapitaMall Xizhimen and CapitaMall Wangjing in Beijing had done well, as did CapitaMall Saihan in Inner Mongolia.

The reit bought CapitaMall Grand Canyon in Beijing on Dec 30 last year. It also reopened CapitaMall Minzhongleyuan, which is in Wuhan in China's Hubei province, on May 1 this year after the mall's revamp was completed.

Mr Victor Liew, chairman of the reit manager said in a statement yesterday that the reit "remains upbeat on China's retail sales prospects" given the Chinese government's "strong commitment to balanced and sustainable long-term growth".