A top housing official in China was planning to take part in a rare online chat with Internet users around the country yesterday to discuss the government’s moves to rein in soaring property prices.
The discussion with Housing and Urban-Rural Development Vice Minister Qi Ji (齊驥) was scheduled for 3pm, the government said on its Web site, and highlights growing fears in China that the property market is overheating.
Beijing has introduced a series of measures in recent weeks to cool the red-hot real estate market amid growing complaints that property prices are out of the reach of many Chinese people.
Prices in major cities rose 11.7 percent year-on-year in March, the fastest pace since a nationwide survey was widened to 70 cities in July 2005, official data showed.
At the Beijing Real Estate Expo last month, the average price of a new apartment in the Chinese capital was 21,164 yuan (US$3,100) per square meter, double that of last year, state media said.
That means a 90m² apartment in Beijing would cost 1.9 million yuan, compared with the average per capita income of 17,175 yuan last year.
It is rare for Chinese government officials to chat directly with Web users.
In February, Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) took part in an online discussion ahead of the country’s annual parliamentary session in March — only the second time he had ever done so.
China has the world’s largest online population with at least 404 million users, according to state media. The Internet in China is also regarded as one of the most heavily censored in the world, with the communist authorities seeking to block a wide range of issues they believe may threaten their rule.
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