Governments at all levels have to shoulder the responsibility of stabilizing property prices to ensure affordable houses for the people, Minister for Construction Wang Guangtao said yesterday.

"To build a multi-level housing security system is the responsibility of the governments," Wang said in his address to a national construction work meeting.

"To supervise and adjust the real estate market to promote its healthy development is the function of the governments."

Wang's remarks are in response to soaring housing prices in the country in recent years, for which many people blame the governments' vulnerable macro-control measures.

Though the rise in housing prices is slowing down, Wang conceded that some serious problems were still not solved.

"The housing supply structure is unbalanced and the rise in property prices in some cities has gone unchecked."

He said the country would stick to its adjusting structure for new homes: building more small houses that the majority of people can afford to buy.

Lessons learnt

"From our reform and explorations during the past more than 10 years, we have found that it's not enough to solve the problem of social inequity in housing by solely relying on the market mechanism.

"Housing is a basic human right and a basic social security, and we must pay special attention to providing houses for the poor."

Wang said his ministry's goal this year is to set up a low-rent housing system in all the cities, counties and towns of the country and ensure houses for people with the minimum social security subsidies.

To achieve the goal, the ministry will push forward its work to maintain and renovate the shanties in the country for the poor, he said. Also, 5 percent of the net income from sale of land will be set aside for the construction of low-rent houses.

"Some local governments rely excessively on real estate business to increase their revenue and thus neglect their responsibility of providing houses for the poor Therefore, it's essential to change this with economic, legal and administrative measures."

The governments' measures to curb the ever-increasing property prices have seen "preliminary effects", Wang said.

Last month, the price of new houses surged 6.3 percent year on year; it was 6.22 percent in the same period last year.

70 percent goal

Wang said the goal of having houses of up to 90 square meters account for at least 70 percent of new homes must be realized.

"We must take the actual living standards and affordability of the majority into consideration The current situation, in which houses of up to 90 square meters account for less than 20 percent of new supplies must be reversed." And the vicious practice of bidding up property price by real estate companies must be stopped, he said.

(China Daily 01/24/2007 page3)