[photopress:real_estate_overheated.jpg,full,alignright]In South China’s Guangdong Province ten government departments are linking up for a special campaign to bring order to the province’s real estate market.
The campaign, which will run through until August next year, will involve the government departments with responsibility for construction, land resources, finance, auditing, State taxation, local taxation, development and reform, pricing, industrial and commercial administration and governmental administration supervision.
Corresponding departments in the province’s 21 cities will also take part in the campaign.
This is not, in a sense, a means to keep the prices down. It is to stop the fiddles. Lu Hongqing, an official with the Guangdong provincial construction department, said the campaign’s goal would be to expose the tricks used by real estate developers when developing, marketing and selling developments.
The campaign will focus on whether developers have illegally used land, deliberately changed plans, released false advertisements, illegally hoarded apartments for speculation, driven up prices, sold property that had yet to pass official inspections or receive approval, dodged taxes or got out of line pulling down old residences or relocating residents.
The campaign will also look into whether government officials or other public servants working with the real estate sector have broken laws or otherwise misbehaved. A particular emphasis is to be placed on whether they have abused power, ignored misconduct by developers, refused to settle administrative procedures in time or asked for or received bribes in their daily work with property firms.
Which is all excellent stuff and probably needed. But it will not bring the real estate boom under control.
The average price of housing in the province was RMB5,750 ($740) per square meter in March, up 22.38% from a year ago. April’s figure is not yet available. The average price in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, was about RMB7,600 per square meter in April, compared with about RMB3,900 per square meter in 2003. However, whether those high prices are the result of demand exceeding supply or a spate of bent deals is open for debate. Logic would suggest the former.
Source: China Daily
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