No relief is in sight for China’s slumping property market as Premier Wen Jiabao (pictured) said that the central government remains committed to continuing its cooling measures, according to The Business Times.
“I can clearly tell everyone now, the housing prices are still far, far from reaching the reasonable levels. Therefore, we cannot relax on our tightening measures, or else all previous efforts will be lost,” he said, shortly after Parliament passed the government’s work report for the year.
Premier Wen’s tough words dampened hopes that Beijing would relax its curbs on the real estate sector. Chinese shares, particularly property counters, were affected by the announcement, with Shanghai’s benchmark stock index falling 2.6 percent at closing.
Although prices of properties in the country rose 10 times in the past decade, 100 major cities saw prices decline for five consecutive months since the cooling measures were introduced, especially when bank lending to the property sector was tightened.
Meanwhile, Premier Wen said that reform has come to a critical stage and that structural political change is needed to correct the issues plaguing the country today, from unfair income gaps, corruption and loss of public trust.
“I deeply understand the solution to these problems not only requires economic reforms, but also political system reform, especially the reform of the (Communist) party and the country’s leadership system,” he said.
Related Stories:
London, New York and Kuala Lumpur are top three property hotspots
Exam, license fees for HK agents unchanged