China's skyrocketing real estate prices have been again in the spotlight for only more than one month since the central bank's housing loan interest rate adjustment last month according to the International Finance News.

A forum on China's real estate situation attended by some cities of the country was held in Shanghai on April 24-25. Zeng Paiyan, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and vice premier of the State Council pointed out at the forum that bringing China's skyrocketing real estate prices under control was a "major task'' in the macro-control policy for this year.

On April 27, Premier of the State Council Wen Jiabao held the standing meeting of the State Council in Beijing, analyzing the situation of the present real estate market and making a study on the issue of further strengthening the macro-control over the real estate market. The meeting emphasized that the issue of solving the scale of real estate investment and faster price hike on the real estate market must be taken as a prominent task for enhancing the present macro-control policy.

The forum and meeting were held nearly at the same time, imparting a clear and strong signal equally, which indicates that the over-fast rise of real estate prices has brought great attention to the state leaders and the departments concerned. As a result, a macro-control battle in the real estate market will be launched soon.

Only by feeling a correct pulse with clearing understanding of the issue can a remedy to the issue be found and then the issue will be solved. There exist four root causes for the present real estate market according to the summary of the forum and meeting, namely the larger scale of the real estate investment, the faster rise of commercial housing prices, the unreasonable structure of commercial houses and comparatively disordered real estate market. The standing meeting of the State Council held on April 27 pointed out sharply the two big questions existed in the real estate market: the scale of real estate investment and the faster rise of real estate prices are the two keys to the present real estate market.

Are there any pertinent moves for the new round of the real estate market macro-controls in order to solve these issues? It is not difficult to discover that there are differences between the new round of macro-controls and the past macro-controls in line with the spirit of the forum and meeting: firstly, putting emphasis on taking economic means as the core. This embodies the use of the economic levers including the comprehensive utility of credit and taxation to prevent speculative demand for housing and to have strict control of buying houses for investment as well as preferential taxation will be provided for ordinary commercial residential housing and economically affordable housing.

Second, emphasizing the government's control functions. This embodies making efforts to improve the structure of supply, strengthen the land supply control dynamics. As an important supplementary means, the urban low-rented housing system will be included in the target responsibility system of the provincial government work in its management of the cities, prefectures and counties under its jurisdiction for the first time.

Third, emphasizing the enhancement of financial supervision. Recently the China Banking Regulatory Commission has carried out the examination of the real estate loans offered by 16 commercial banks in eight provinces, requiring the commercial banks to strictly control the unreasonable loan demand with stress on top-grade housing and to support the projects of the middle-and-low-grade ordinary commercial housing and economically affordable housing. The checking has fully embodies the way of thinking for the new round of the real estate controls.

While solving the problem of the real estate market, the basic principle of "laying emphasis on important issues and that of adaptation to local conditions'' must be abided by since there exist an comparatively outstanding issue of region and structure, which means there will be a fiercer "windstorm of adjustments'' soon in a few cities where there is an overheated real estate market.

By People's Daily Online