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Ministries urge land and home price curbs

By Ren Jie (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-03-11 15:28

China reiterated its stance on cooling down the nation's property market, and two ministries urged local governments to further fulfill the central government's home prices curbing policies, various Chinese media reported Friday.

The Ministry of Land and Resources issued a notice on Thursday urging a rational adjustment on housing and land prices, according to the China Securities Journal. It also asked local governments to control prices and avoid a new "land king."

The notice said that local governments should further improve their land supply policies, contain irrational competition that drives the land prices up, and promote the reasonable adjustment of home and land prices.

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The local government should eradicate any situation in which the new land price per floor area exceeds the highest price in history for the same standard land, the report said.

The ministry's demand for controlling new "land kings" will curb the rising of land prices, which may affect home prices, said Li Shaoming, an analyst with China Jianyin Investment Securities.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has also urged local governments to announce their targets for curbing home prices by the end of the month known as March.

The Ministry has required 35 cities to exert property purchasing limitations. In all, 34 cities have issued such policies, with the remaining one implemented property tax pilot that already included purchasing limitation terms, the Shanghai Securities reported Thursday, quoting the Minister Jiang Weixin.

The report said Jiang said the Ministry did not consider ending the purchasing limits at the moment.