Premier Wen sets four goals on housing issue

At the annual session of China's top political advisory body, housing issues have rocketed up the agenda. From ordinary citizens to top policy makers, the phrase "real estate" triggers mixed feelings.

Fueled by record bank lending and favorable tax breaks, Chinese house prices have surged since June last year. As Xinhua reports, in the first eleven months of 2009, the national average price of a home reached 4,600 yuan per square meter. This is up 27.8 percent from the same period in 2008. According to CPPCC members, the house price to income ratio in Beijing has surpassed that of Tokyo. In response to this, the central government put 55.1 billion yuan into low-income housing projects in 2009.

In the work report, Premier Wen sets four goals, including expanding low-income housing projects, incentives for homeowners who live in their homes, reining in speculative housing purchases, and standardizing the real estate market.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said, "We will work to rectify and standarize the real estate market. We will improve the methods for managing and using income from land, and keep land prices from rising too fast. We will make greater efforts to deal with violations of laws and regulations such as keeping land unused, property hoarding and price rigging."