Orient Overseas International is in the final stages of auctioning about $2bn of property projects in China according to Reuters reported.

CapitaLand is one of about five bidders for the projects, Reuters said.

Shares of Orient Overseas, Hong Kong’s biggest container line, and Singapore-based CapitaLand were halted from trading pending an announcement, the two companies said in separate regulatory filings today. Stanley Shen, an Orient Overseas spokesman, and CapitaLand declined to comment on the report.

Orient Overseas Chairman Tung Chee Chen said in August that pre-sales of selected residential projects in China’s Kunshan and Shanghai will be ready by early 2010.

bloomberg.com