The Supreme People's Court (SPC) has called for stricter handling of real estate cases to help implement the Chinese government's new round of policies to cool down its real estate market.

Xiao Yang, president of the SPC, said at a national conference of presidents of the higher courts held this week, "China now stands at a crucial stage of development and is challenged by various social problems, including crime, which exerts great pressure on the courts."

Tightening supervision over the real estate market is one of the court's efforts to safeguard the country's macro control policies, Xiao said.

"We will carry out China's policies in the real estate industry to prevent speculation and illegal land seizure as well as illegal buying and selling," said Li Daomin, president of the higher court of central China's Henan province.

On May 17, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended a State Council meeting on working out new macro measures to curb soaring housing prices and the increasing amount of vacant commercial buildings.

The meeting announced six major policies for China's real estate market, emphasizing that tight tax, loan and land regulations would be put in place to restructure the industry.

The vacant area of China's commercial buildings had surged 18.9 percent from last year to 122 million square meters by the end of April this year, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.

The bureau said the vacant commercial residential buildings amounted to 69.21 million square meters, up 15.9 percent.

The aim of the new regulations is to adjust the housing supply structure to provide less expensive apartments for low-income families.

Since China adopted macro-control over the real estate market last year, increasing investment in the sector and price hikes were initially reined in. But a survey conducted by the Ministry of Construction showed that in the first months of 2006 the problems had not been solved as prices continued to rise rapidly in big cities and market rules remained vague.

Insiders said the effectiveness of the six new measures depends on whether the local governments will implement them fully.

The public reacted quickly to the new measures. An online survey showed that 77.48 percent would postpone their house-buying plans until the market becomes clearer.

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