From our archives

China Daily | Updated: 2009-01-22 07:45

Jan 21, 1984

Bank loans extended to help house buyers

The house loan service introduced last year to help urban house-hunters buy houses is to be extended to help more would-be buyers, according to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).

The service, now available in 16 provinces and cities, has helped 9,100 people buy or repair houses or apartments. About 8.7 million yuan had been loaned to house buyers by the end of last year.

China's housing management is undergoing a series of reforms, the official said. As part of the experiment some of the country's housing services will be commercialized to reduce the burden on the State treasury and to ease an acute housing shortage.

Survey counts China's cities

China now has 289 cities, more than double the number in the early 1950s, with 170 of them are inhabited by less than 200,000 people and 71 have populations of 200,000 to half a million, according to the State Statistical Bureau.

There are 48 cities with more than half a million people, and 20 of them are inhabited by more than one million, like Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Kunming.

In 1982, 232 cities accounted for about 75 percent of China's industrial output value.

Two-wheel trouble

China's 130 million bicycles have become a major cause of traffic jams.

Fifty to 60 percent of all traffic accidents in some major cities involve bicycles and the situation is worsening.

Take Beijing as an example, bicycles increased by an average of half a million a year between 1981 and 1983. The city now has 4.3 million bikes and the number will exceed 5 million by the end of 1985. Public buses in the city have had to slow down from 18 km per hour in 1981 to 15 km per hour now due to the surging number of bicycles on road.