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Home prices to be part of performance
Beijing—Officials’ ability to
keep real estate prices stable and affordable will be a major criterion
in deciding their performance and career prospects, a senior Ministry of
Housing and Urban-Rural Construction official said yesterday.
“We should be setting up an accountability system for governments and
officials soon,” Shen Jianzhong, the director of the real estate
department of the ministry, said at a press conference of the annual
session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), which ends today.
The newly approved ministry, to replace the Ministry of Construction, is
responsible for realizing China’s new housing policy targeted at
“ensuring everyone is sheltered”. Shen said local government officials
should monitor housing prices to prevent price volatility and ensure
that homes remained affordable, but he did not provide details of the
accountability system.
The country currently has in place a system to track the performance of
governments and officials in managing work safety, family planning,
energy saving and emissions control. Late last year, the government
announced a new system for measuring performance, which ties career
advancement to success in achieving environmental targets.
Under these new rules, if company bosses or government officials fail to
meet half the national goal of reducing energy consumption per unit of
GDP by 4 percent annually, they will lose the opportunity to be
promoted. Shen said the country is still faced with mounting pressure
from real estate price hikes as supply cannot meet rising demand.
“The land available is limited, which has a big impact on housing
prices,” Shen said. He added that the role of the government was to
allocate adequate land to build low-cost housing with price caps for the
poor and middle-income families.
“When their demands have been satisfied, that will help decrease the
number of buyers and be helpful in curbing the rise of housing prices,”
he said. Qi Ji, the vice-minister of construction, said the central
government has decided to allocate 70 percent of land supply this year
to build homes for middle- and low-income families and the needy.
Citing Premier Wen Jiabao’s work report to the NPC, Qi said China plans
to earmark 6.8 billion yuan ($960 million) in its 2008 budget to build
low-rent houses for the urban poor in the western and middle parts of
the country. The amount is 1.7 billion yuan, or 33 percent, more than
last year. “Local governments are also required to increase funding in
this area,” Qi said.
With a large population and relatively little land available, Qi said
the country has to turn to small- and medium-sized homes that are
environmentally friendly to conserve energy and land.
—Xinhua |
