Chinese spend much on housing last year
19/9/2003 14:36
According to a report in today's Beijing Morning Post, residents in
Chinese urban areas currently have an average living space of 22.8 square
meters, an increase of 5.2 square meters from 1997.
Some 72.8 percent of
domestic housing properties are privately-owned, with more than 80 percent of
tradeable public housing selling to employees, said Liu Zhifeng, Vice Minister
of Construction at a press conference held by the State Council
Chinese
individuals spent nearly 800 billion yuan (US$96 billion) on housing last year,
Liu said.
Domestic housing prices have maintained a steady growth, with
average residential property prices increasing by 3.6 percent every year over
the past five years, lower than residents' disposable income growth during the
same period.
"We will revise our statistics on housing properties by the
end of the year, with properties constructed no more than one year ago defined
as housing put up for sale, those built one to three year ago defined as
unsalable properties and those build more than three years ago considered
overstocked," Liu said.
China will speed up establishment of a housing
information forecast system to strengthen supervision of the domestic real
estate market, Liu added.
"The central government will also strengthen
efforts to crack down on corruption in land development and residents
relocating," he said.
According to the Ministry of Construction, residents
cannot relocate until they get all the financial compensation for relocating.
Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news
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