China will try hard to fund housing for low-income urbanities as
funding remains a problem, said Qi Ji, deputy minister of
construction on Thursday.
"There is still a big fund gap," Qi told a news conference about
expanding low-rent housing for the country's low-income
families.
By 2010, the low-rent housing system will expand from four
million urban residents with basic living allowances to those 10
million low-income families, according to a policy framework
released by the State Council earlier this month.
"To let more families enjoy the low-rent housing, China needs an
annual fund of 50 billion yuan but all money that can be raised can
barely reach 14 billion yuan every year, said Qi.
Local governments should earmark funds for low-rent housing in
their budgets and at least 10 percent of the proceeds of land sales
and all the proceeds of the housing provident funds should be used
for low-rent housing, he said.
The central government will also grant special financial support
to central and western regions for the low-rent housing.
According to statistics, the average housing area for each
urbanite have risen to 27 square meters in 2006 from 6.7 square
meters in 1978 when China began its opening and reform drives. But
there are still 10 million low-income families with housing space
per capita barely reaching 10 square meters.
By the end of 2006, 512 of China's 657 cities have had initiated
affordable housing strategies, but only 268,000 households, or 2.7
percent of the low-income families nationwide, have benefited from
the low-renting housing policy.
(Xinhua News Agency August 31, 2007)
