(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-20 18:52

"It is a bad idea to implement the price-limit housing policy or carry out the practice of building apartments with subsidies from working units," said Fu, who is also a member on Guangzhou city committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a government work advisory body, during a group discussion on economic affairs held in Guangzhou.

"Price-limit housing should be abolished as it will bring along new inequality and will do harm to the harmony of  society," said Fu.

Fu was confronted by Ou Muhua in an online posting with www.people.com.cn. saying that one benefit of price-limit housing is to help squeeze bubbles in price adjustments.

The government-supported price-limit housing lacks a theoretical basis,and would be considered as "gilding the lily", said Xu Dianqing, an economist, during an interview with China Real Estate Business, a Beijing-based newspaper.

"Housing prices are complicated, and are decided by diverse factors of real estate projects such as location, environment, structure and quality," said Xu.

"The intention on the part of the government is to transfer part of the profits of the developers to home buyers by way of setting a ceiling on the selling price of certain housing, but that intention is hard to meet in reality and in the end the quality of the housing suffers."

The effect of the price-limit housing is restricted, said another posting on www.people.com.cn. "The government is suspected of shirking its responsibility by practising the price-limit housing policy," said the posting, "such policy only helps rich people save some money to buy homes but could by no means help poor people solve housing problems against a backdrop where the market plays a role in supply of land, construction materials."

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