New housing mandate

Premier Wen Jiabao's pledge to tame the country's runaway housing prices is not new. But his latest announcement that the government will work to build 36 million affordable homes in five years has made that promise more credible than ever.

We hope all local governments that have failed to meet their affordable housing construction targets in previous years will do their utmost to fulfill this goal.

If so many affordable apartments can be built in time, it is more than likely that the housing pressure on poor families will be significantly relieved and that China will manage to avoid a devastating property bubble.