Real estate becomes mainstay of China's economy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 18, 2003

Real estate becomes mainstay of China's economy

Real estate has become a pillar industry in China's economy since the sector directly and indirectly fueled about a two percentage point growth in the country's annual GDP in recent years.

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Real estate has become a pillar industry in China's economy since the sector directly and indirectly fueled about a two percentage point growth in the country's annual GDP in recent years.

Liu Zhifeng, vice-minister of construction, made the remarks Thursday at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council.

The industry has played a significant role in improving people's living conditions, energizing the economy, generating job opportunities and speeding up urban development, he said.

In the past five years, the proportion of commercial housing purchased by individual residents has increased from 54.5 percent to 95.3 percent in the gross sales volume of national commercial housing.

The nationwide investment for real estate development has grown19.5 percent annually on average since 1998. Construction of 3.4 billion square meters of housing was accomplished from 1998 to 2002, according to statistics.

Last year, individuals paid 800 billion yuan (96.4 billion US dollars) to purchase new and second-hand housing, bringing to 22.8square meters the per capita residential area for city and town dwellers.

However, Liu noted that China's real estate development is now still "imbalanced", citing that there is too much high-priced housing for sale in some areas, while other regions saw a marked growth of investment in housing development just to highlight the image of a city or boast the political achievements of local authorities.

The vice-minister vowed to take a series of measures to build a market-oriented real estate market, deliver a demand-driven supply, serve the needs of the ordinary people and strengthen monitoring and administration of the sector.

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