The Supreme People's Court (SPC) has called for stricter handling
of real estate cases to help implement the Chinese government's new
round of policies to cool down its real estate market.
Xiao Yang, president of the SPC, said at a
national conference of presidents of the higher courts held this
week, "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."
Tightening supervision over the real estate market is one of the
court's efforts to safeguard the country's macro 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, president of the higher court
of central China's Henan Province.
On May 17, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended a State Council meeting on
working out new macro measures to curb soaring housing prices and
the increasing amount of vacant commercial buildings.
The meeting announced six major policies for China's real estate
market, emphasizing that tight tax, loan and land regulations would
be put in place to restructure the industry.
The vacant area of China's commercial buildings had surged 18.9
percent from last year to 122 million square meters by the end of
April this year, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.
The bureau said the vacant commercial residential buildings
amounted to 69.21 million square meters, up 15.9 percent.
The aim of the new regulations is to adjust the housing supply
structure to provide less expensive apartments for low-income
families.
Since China adopted macro-control over the real estate market
last year, increasing investment in the sector and price hikes were
initially reined in. But a survey conducted by the Ministry of
Construction showed that in the first months of 2006 the problems
had not been solved as prices continued to rise rapidly in big
cities and market rules remained vague.
Insiders said the effectiveness of the six new measures depends
on whether the local governments will implement them fully.
The public reacted quickly to the new measures. An online survey
showed that 77.48 percent would postpone their house-buying plans
until the market becomes clearer.
(Xinhua News Agency July 2, 2006)