Changing China
Giant on the move
from Summit Notebook:
The visible hand
Beijing's affordable housing projects -- which account for 10 percent of the government's huge $585 billion stimulus package, a key to propping up the crucial property market -- is making fans of low income wage earners, but has some developers seething.
Some developers see the government's role in the market as interference in market forces that are distorting prices.
"This market is monopolised, there is no fair competition," Feng Lun, the chairman of Beijing Vantone Real Estate Co, told the Reuters China Investment Summit.
"The government is increasingly controlling property prices," said Feng. "Whatever price they want that's where the price is."
The government's affordable housing is pulling prices down around the country, according to Feng.
The government's motives are rooted in simple math.
Investment in residential housing made up about 10 percent of gross domestic product before the property boom turned to bust in 2008, roughly the same as the country's huge export sector.
