Govt reveals new-year pledge on housing prices

BEIJING - China's central government will strengthen its campaign to control soaring housing prices in 2011, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Jiang Weixin told a national work conference that the government will increase the regulation of the country's property market while also strengthening the implementation of tightening measures introduced in 2010.

Jiang said the central government will provide more favorable policies to help people who buy houses to live in but, in a bid to stop housing prices soaring, it will restrict house purchases intended for investment and speculation.