Court gets tough on real estate
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-07-03 16:04 China's Supreme People's
Court has called for tighter handling of real estate issues to help implement
the government's new round of policies designed to cool down the property
market.
"China now stands at a crucial stage of development and is challenged by
various social problems, including crime, which exerts great pressure on the
courts," SPC President Xiao Yang told a recent national conference of court
presidents.
Tightening supervision over the real estate market is one of the court's
efforts to safeguard the country's macroeconomic control policies, Xiao said.
"We will carry out China's policies in the real estate industry to prevent
speculation and illegal land seizure as well as illegal buying and selling,"
said Li Daomin, a high court president in central China's Henan Province.
China's State Council in May worked out new measures to curb soaring housing
prices and the increasing amount of vacant commercial buildings.
The measures included several major initiatives for China's real estate
market such as higher sales taxes and tightened loan rules and land regulations.
China's vacancy rate for commercial buildings surged 18.9 percent on-year at
the end of April to 122 million square meters, the National Bureau of Statistics
reported.
The bureau said vacant residential buildings amounted to 69.21 million square
meters, up 15.9 percent.
The new regulations aim to adjust the housing supply structure and provide
lower priced apartments for low-income families.
But a recent survey conducted by the Ministry of Construction showed that
prices continued to rise rapidly in big cities and market rules remained vague.
Because of the uncertainly, an Internet survey showed that 77.48 percent of
respondents will postpone their house-buying plans until the market is
clarified.
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