China Continues to Supply Affordable Housing for Urban Poor

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, April 01, 2003

China Continues to Supply Affordable Housing for Urban Poor

The supply of affordable housing for millions of low and medium-income earners will continue this year despite drawing criticism.

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The supply of affordable housing for millions of low and medium-income earners will continue this year despite drawing criticism.

Members of the public are concerned that many people on high incomes have been able to buy into economical estates because of a lack of a reliable national system that differentiates the rich from the poor.

But experts and officials say the criticism should not influence the government's decision to expand its construction of affordable housing.

"Basically, the housing policy is sound and the problem lies with the sale process,'' said Tong Yuezhong, deputy-director of the Promotion Centre for Housing Industrialization under the Ministry of Construction.

Official statistics show up to 80 per cent of urban residents are low and medium-income families and 1.56 million urban households do not have enough living space.

According to government regulations, economical housing is built especially for low-income urbanites. The low price of the homes comes from the State's favourable polices for real estate developers.

Tong said the policy had helped many people move into more suitable housing and had been warmly welcomed in many cities.

But some residents are concerned about the programme.

"In some of the budget residential communities in Beijing, luxury cars are not rare, some people even own several apartments in the community,'' said 28-year-old Xiao Yu, who bought an apartment in Beijing's Tiantongyuan Community.

Xiao insisted that rich people buying into the estates have not only taken away State welfare, but have had a negative impact on the sale of regular commercial apartments.

The government is considering making changes to the process.

Earlier this month, the State Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Land and Resources and Ministry of Construction started a joint investigation on the development and management of the housing system in 11 provinces and municipalities.

"The investigation will help us make the policy flawless,'' Tong said.

Another Ministry of Construction official said the departments controlling the regulations for the housing should close loopholes to ensure the State's favourable policy goes to where it is most needed.

China started exploring new housing systems to meet the demands of a market economy in the early 1980s and made the previous system extinct, under which each work unit distributed housing to its employees.

A blueprint was formed in the late 1990s under which the poorest families were able to rent standard housing provided by the government or work units.Medium and low-income families were able to purchase homes at a lower price and the rich had to pay a market price.

More than 100 million square metres of low-cost housing -- more than half of the area of all new homes -- is built in China each year, statistics show.

The Ministry of Construction and China Society of Architecture recently awarded a list of economical housing projects because of their excellent designs.

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