Property prices continue to climb nationally despite government
measures to hose down the sizzling property market.
Housing prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities rose an
average of 5.6 percent year on year in January, 0.2 percent faster
than December last year, the country's top planner, the National
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said yesterday.
Meanwhile, prices in the secondary housing market rose 5.3
percent in January, a jump of 1.1 percent from the previous
month.
Non-residential property prices have also risen, according to
NDRC's latest monthly housing price index report.
Shenzhen ranked the first in the price hike last month with an
annual rise of 10.2 percent.
Prices in Beijing have jumped 9.9 percent in one year, marking
the second fastest growth rate among the 70 cities.
Fuzhou and Guangzhou were also highly ranked in the property
price stakes.
The central government has issued a raft of measures to rein in
soaring housing prices.
It has issued an official mandate to build more smaller houses
and to levy more value-added tax on developers.
And starting from this month, tax authorities have begun
enforcing a land tax on developers, which would slug them with up
to 60 percent of the net income of a real estate project depending
on the profits they made.
(China Daily February 16, 2007)