Curbs on home purchases will be 'phased out'

Restrictions to be scrapped after national database set up: minister

SHANGHAI / BEIJING - Restrictions on home purchases will be scrapped following the completion of a national database of property ownership and other related information, a top housing official said on Thursday.

Jiang Weixin, minister of housing and urban-rural development, said in Beijing that the restrictions, introduced earlier this year, were "administrative" measures to cool down the property sector.