Following years of breakneck construction, the number of new skyscrapers in China dropped sharply in 2019, according to data released by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) on Thursday.

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There are signs that the building boom may have outstripped demand in parts of China. Take Tianjin, for instance, which is responsible for this year's tallest skyscraper -- the 530-meter (1,739-foot) Tianjin CTF Finance Centre, now the world's eighth highest. Here, there is a city-wide office vacancy rate of over 44%, according to data published by the real estate and investment firm CBRE, although the firm's head of research for Greater China, Ada Choi, said in an email to CNN that there is "great variation in vacancy" around the country.

This year's drop in new completions may also reflect changing official attitudes towards tall building projects. It could, Safarik suggested, signal less appetite for using landmark skyscrapers to put smaller cities on the map or spread investment away from dominant coastal areas.

Given that tall buildings take years to complete, the fall may even represent the belated impact of Xi Jinping's ascent more than six years ago. As early as 2014, the Chinese president has indicated that his government is concerned with the size and shape of buildings emerging from China's construction boom, later calling for an end to "oversized, xenocentric, weird" structures.

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