The State Council has emphasized the importance of a housing
security system to ensure affordable houses for the country's urban
poor.
At a national conference on urban housing held at the weekend,
the cabinet highlighted the importance of a low-rent housing
system. It issued the plan, known as No 24 file, on August 13.
It was the first high-profile housing conference since 1998,
when the country embarked on a market-oriented urban housing
reform, insiders said.
The plan to make houses available at low rents or provide
equivalent subsidies is scheduled to cover all the minimum living
standards in large- and medium-sized cities by the end of this
year. And it is scheduled to cover all low-income families across
the country by 2010.
A "double limit" requirement mooted in June was highlighted at
the conference to limit the price and size of affordable houses.
According to the requirement, at least 70 percent of apartments in
new complexes have to be less than 90 sq m each.
Attended by the Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan, the conference
highlighted the imperativeness of urban low-rent and affordable
housing, and commercial housing not exceeding a price ceiling.
"Different from the two housing guidelines issued in 2005 and
2006 to cool down the commercial housing market, the No 24 file
stresses a social guarantee toward the urban poor," Ni Pengfei, a
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher was quoted by
Southern Metropolis as saying. To better facilitate the
implementation of the plan, the civil affairs, land use, fiscal and
taxation and other related departments are expected to submit nine
supportive plans to the State Council before October.
These include verification of low-income families, management of
low-rent and economy housing, bottom-line housing descriptions for
migrant workers, national budget subsidies and preferential
financial policies. Some officials have also been shifted or
reshuffled to facilitate the implementation of the plan.
Jiang Zengwei, former deputy-director of the State Commission of
Development and Reform, has been renamed deputy-director of the
Ministry of Construction. In charge of the nation's fixed asset
management, he led an inspection team to Shenzhen in March to study
the most expensive property market in the country.
(China Daily August 28, 2007)