Beijing is building one million apartments as public rental homes for its residents over the next five years. Chongqing plans to build 40 million square meters of apartment buildings in the next three years to house 2 million low and middle-income residents. That means one-third of the population in Chongqing's urban center can be covered by public rental housing and pay rents that are 40 percent less than that of comparable commercial housing.

In the past, those who have applied for public rental apartments were required to be registered local residents. But now cities like Chongqing and Shanghai have eliminated that requirement.

Zhang Xueqin, Director of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, says more people will benefit from such policies.

"During the upcoming five years, the government will endeavor to provide shelter to low-income households, and at the same time we will focus on building more public rental housing to help low and middle-income families, including those who have just started to work and migrant workers."

At the end of 2010, China had built 370-thousand public rental apartments for those from low and middle-income households. This year 2 million such apartments—six times last year's number—will be built.