Shanghai Daily news

The Shanghai government will ensure that 17,000 families who have to move out of their homes to make way for the World Expo sites will have first shot at buying budget apartments in the suburbs.
The government also said yesterday it plans to build 3 million square meters of affordable housing in the city's suburbs this year for those who have to relocate to make room for urban construction.
It plans to build 14 million square meters of cheap apartments by 2008.
"Our aim is to improve the living conditions of the relocated residents although their new homes could be far away from downtown," Lin Yingqing, deputy director of the Shanghai Housing and Land Administrative Bureau, said yesterday.
Most of the affordable housing will be in 17 major residential bases in suburban districts, such as Nanhui, Qingpu, Minhang and Baoshan. All of the areas are more than a 1-hour drive from People's Square.
Most of the affordable apartments will be 50 to 90 square meters in size.
Lin acknowledged that the average price for the budget apartments has jumped from 3,500 yuan (US$421.70) a square meter two years ago to about 4,000 yuan. The price could continue to rise as local real estate prices increase.
Housing prices in Shanghai rose 14.6 percent year on year in 2004, according to the city's Bureau of Statistics. In January, the average price for a home was 9,100 yuan a square meter.
The city plans to relocate 60,000 families from downtown to the suburbs this year to make way for key urban projects, such as Expo sites, new subway lines, and public parks.
The 17,000 families relocated from future Expo sites will be offered apartments in Sanlin Town in Pudong and Pujiang Town in Minhang.
Officials said they will all be given "appropriate compensation" plus the first chance to buy a budget apartment in either of the two areas. But they have to promise they won't re-sell their budget homes for five years.
Wang Xiuhua and her husband are among hundreds of thousands of locals who have been relocated from downtown to remote areas in recent year.
"Every day, I have to spend four hours commuting from my home in Sanlin Town to reach my company in the city's far north. However, my living condition has improved a lot," Wang told Shanghai Daily yesterday.
Wang and her husband moved from a 13-square-meter apartment on downtown's Julu Road to a new 70-square-meter home earlier this year to make way for the construction of a public park.
They received about 180,000 yuan as compensation for the old apartment, and the new home cost 270,000 yuan.
"I am very satisfied with my new house, except for the traffic," she said, adding that her old apartment didn't have a private toilet.
Also yesterday, the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination announced the first phase of Pujiang Expo Garden, located in Minhang District, will be completed by the year's end.
About 2,000 families will move from downtown Huangpu and Luwan districts to the complex next spring.
"The price of budget apartments will be cheap enough for residents to afford," said Kong Qingwei, president of Shanghai World Expo Land Holding Co, Ltd.
Pujiang Expo Garden, which will host 1.1 million square meters of affordable apartments, will cost 4.3 billion yuan to build.