Shanghai’s Mayor Han Zheng announced that the municipal government would overhaul its booming real estate market and provide more affordable housing in order to control rapidly rising real estate prices in the city. He said the municipal government would introduce more transparency into the market by opening up the bidding process for land sales.
Shanghai will also publish a new policy to ban speculation on houses under construction and establish an “early warning system” on the housing market.
China wants to cool autos Local officials in Jiangsu province said that plans for a JV with British carmaker MG Rover had been held up by the central government’s desire to limit new production capacity. The government was expected to publish a new policy before the end of 2003 that would maintain a ceiling of 50% for foreign investment, bar most new entrants to the market and aim at making the country a global production center. In the first 10 months of this year, China produced a record 1.6 million passenger cars, a year-on-year increase of more than 50%.