Leading Chinese banks have injected billions of yuan into housing projects with the aim of financing the completion of pre-sold but yet-to-be-completed homes across the country, according to figures released by the lenders.

The initiative, which falls under the so-called whitelist mechanism, is part of Beijing's efforts to revive a weakening property sector that accounts for a quarter of China's gross domestic product.

China Construction Bank (CCB), one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in the country, has handled more than 2,000 projects under the mechanism and approved nearly a hundred with pending disbursements of more than 20 billion yuan (US$2.78 billion), the bank said on Tuesday.

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"Recently, the Beijing, Fujian, Anhui and Henan branches of CCB have realised the placement of five projects with an amount of nearly 3 billion yuan," the bank said in a social media post.

The whitelists, launched by the housing ministry at the start of the year, ask provincial governments to recommend to banks local residential projects that are deemed financially sound and fit for further loan support. The whitelist screening criteria are based on projects instead of developers themselves.

Authorities have been urging provincial governments and banks to increase funding to struggling property developers, following the sharpest decline in nearly nine years in new home prices recorded in December.

As of the end of January, the local governments of 170 cities had put forward 3,218 real estate projects for consideration under the whitelist mechanism, according to official figures.

Bank of China (BOC) reported on Monday that it had advanced the reviews of more than 110 projects totalling 55 billion yuan. Among them, 75 with a total amount of nearly 40 billion yuan had been approved.

"Next, BOC will continue to fulfil its responsibilities as a major state-owned bank," it said in a WeChat post. "It will treat all enterprises, regardless of ownership, equally to meet their reasonable financing needs."

Agricultural Bank of China, another state-owned commercial bank, said on Sunday that it had approved nearly 10 new projects with loans totalling nearly 5 billion yuan, after handling more than 2,700 projects under the whitelists mechanism.

Similarly, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had also handled more than 2,000 projects as of Thursday, according to an official announcement.